Hinata Supreme
by Guardian54
Summary: Hinata's Genin exam goes horribly right, and she ends up showing up at Roanoke Abyss like others have over the years. In this universe, Orochimaru just wanted to fix induced incontinence, Mizuki took Naruto to practical lessons in bar brawling, Tenten is the reincarnation of another with hair buns, and Kaguya was a fan-girl. Candidate for "Most Unlikely Crossovers" communities.
1. Thou Shalt Not Replacement in Panic

**A/N: This is a crack fic as off-the-wall nuts as "Awakening the Swarm", due to the ludicrously huge differences in technology, power, etc.** This exists in the same continuity as "Supreme Commander: Evangelion" and "Ramen Uber Alles", and occasionally refers to the events of the former. I also make the most effort possible to morally even out (e.g. redeem bad guys, temper down good guys) as many characters as I think reasonable.

 **You have been WARNED that this can probably qualify for "The Most Unlikely Crossovers".**

There will be no Japanese honorifics unless specifically used for emphasis. You may assume that no Coalition member uses them regardless and that the Elemental Nations natives use them by default, unless it's a specific case of communications between the two groups, or Hinata, who will often be noted to be using or not using them as she will straddle the line.

* * *

Chapter 1: Thou Shalt Not Replacement in Panic

 _Academy Graduation Ceremony, Hidden Leaf Village, March 25, 12 Years After Nine-Tails (let's call this "A9" and Before "B9")_

"Alright, Hinata, please Transform into what you think the older version of yourself would look like." Mizuki said cheerfully.

"Wait, what—" Iruka did a double-take at his assistant and friend.

Hinata did as Naruto had taught her when she asked him for help once… she was puzzled as to how his version could bypass her bloodline, so she'd asked him to teach her. It had been incredibly draining on her chakra, but she was fairly certain she had improved her chakra capacity by practicing it. However, due to the fact that she'd only practiced transforming into other things vaguely her size and shape, she didn't think enough before transforming.

In less euphemistic terms, there was a loud tearing of her hoodie's zipper as it gave up the ghost, while a crushing pressure Hinata suddenly felt on her chest was relieved slightly. Then there was a series of loud pops as her undershirt's buttons failed one by one and shot outward. Oh, and her pants' zipper and button failed too, and her ninja sandals' buckles burst. She was very glad she wasn't wearing a belt, because the power of her chakra pushing outward would either have gouged into her or… _Oh shit._ "EEP! Replacement Technique!" She disappeared from the teachers' sight, thinking _Father always did say that there were appropriate times for profanity, I suppose that was a good idea of one of those times._

Mizuki reached up and pried a rather sizable button from where only a quick shut-eye and frown had stuck it on his brow ridge and cheekbone instead of his eye. "…Wait… what?" He had been too shocked to dodge.

Iruka's eyes narrowed as he picked himself up, discreetly wiping away the chakra-boosted blast of what looked like blood—it was actually a little blood bulked up in volume by snot—that had exited his nose "Look, Mizuki, if this is about Tsubaki dumping you and you wanting to see another pair of boobs before I punch your lights out for potential pedophilia…"

Mizuki facepalmed "Please don't tell me you subscribe to the 'True Hyuuga Bloodline' nonsense... and pedophilia, really, Iruka? Did that look anything like a loli to you? And don't think I don't see your nosebleed there!"

Iruka sighed "…You know full well by technicalities I think you'd be a better teacher, but you also know full well that kids this age don't deal well in technicalities."

"I wish we had courses where we could teach Chunin or at least Genin…" Mizuki grumbled. "But I also know that we need to get the kids to prove their loyalty first before teaching them overly advanced and dangerous techniques."

"Sad, but true."

"And all it takes is one goddamned mission gone wrong where I accidentally grabbed an injured guy the wrong way while fleeing for our lives for me to lose the trust of, well, everybody except you and the kids, Iruka." Mizuki groused further.

"Tsubaki still believes in you, even though you've managed to push her away." Iruka pointed out. "You know if you'd told the truth from the start about that mission you'd probably be Jonin or at least Special Jonin by now."

Mizuki waved him off "Bah, better she not be tied to someone like me, I'd say, especially with what I'm planning for tonight. Besides, Jonin? And give up the chance to watch the next generation make fools of everyone… though sometimes me too, but that's a worthwhile viewing fee… Wait, you ARE joking, right?"

"You know, once I stopped pranking you started, and what's worse I suspect you're helping Naruto…"

Mizuki shrugged. Sure, he'd helped the brat lug the paint up the side of the mountain, but it was a good study in stealth, honestly! After all, he had been the guy who the ANBU had, uh, expressed their general displeasure toward once his gift to the little monster ("For fuck's sake, stop looking at me like I'm breaking the Third's Law, I'm just expressing our common opinion of the pranking!") had worn off its effect of being an easily spotted eyesore. The brat had gotten even MORE stealthy, somehow, and Mizuki had been forced to give Taijutsu lessons in exchange for learning the brat's secrets. "It was a good way to vent at the unfairness of accusing me of murdering my team member just so that I could seal his body away and run faster."

"And the pranks toward me and even one on Naruto that had him trying to eat me?" Iruka prodded.

"Hey, it wasn't fair that they judged me a ninja with more potential but approved me only on condition of being your assistant because of that controversy, and it was better than just sulking over it. Now though I'm immensely glad for it because I have much less paperwork."

Iruka snorted "Yeah, well, that totally sounds like a great reason to douse me in ramen broth while trying to apprehend Naruto from his pretend sleepwalking. He actually fell asleep while I was towing him back to his house and started gnawing on me."

"You never told me this story before…"

"I don't know, maybe the shock of seeing Hinata practically explode out of her clothes loosened my wits a bit?" Iruka said as they waited for Hinata to come back from wherever she'd teleported to, though a fainting spell wouldn't be out of the question, it was usually safe enough inside the academy that almost certainly nothing bad happened. Then there was passive chakra body reinforcement, hence why no ninjas ever broke their necks falling down stairs, but that was another story.

Mizuki was thinking about how he'd even choked down a more than sufficient amount of the grossly unhealthy food called ramen just to learn more of the brat's techniques. He loathed the food, because his beloved grandfather had been a ramen addict who died of high blood pressure causing a stroke when the Nine-Tails attacked. On the other hand, he did admit that ramen was actually reasonably healthy for a ninja conducting active training, as it contained lots of salt to replace that lost through sweat, and plenty of carbohydrates for energy. So he was able to (barely) choke it down despite his memories of his grandfather's final, pitiful state, seizing and losing control of his bowels, with no hospital beds available in the aftermath of the Nine-Tails' attack, no medics to try to save him…

Iruka didn't know about this, Mizuki never told him, though Iruka had still picked up on his great dislike for the food well enough. "So, when do you think Hinata will come back?"

"Iruka-sensei! A grown-up version of Hinata just appeared in a cloud of smoke straddling Naruto's face, then did a Replacement to somewhere else the moment she noticed where she was! There's boiling red chakra spraying from Naruto's nose!" Chouji rushed in, yelling.

Mizuki and Iruka shared a look "…Oh shit." Then they vaulted over the desk and rushed to the waiting room, the white-haired teaching assistant (and what a relief that was once he saw Iruka's paperwork level versus his own for the first time) bending down to scoop up Naruto's goggles as he ran. Apparently Hinata had been thinking a bit too much on how she only wanted her crush to see her like this when she panicked and did a Replacement to escape.

Well, whenever they found the Hyuuga heiress, they'd be able to give her a shiny new Forehead Protector, because she'd passed the exam.

* * *

In retrospect, Tobi really should not have come back to visit Konoha again during one of his rare days off. It seemed the town was about as insane as it used to be when he lived here, so long ago. Apparently, driven mad by a hot Nine-Tails chakra injection into a certain part of her anatomy, a certain Hyuuga heiress, now almost completely naked, was still Replacing about like a hot potato. Well, she was hot, alright, especially that Transformation she seemed to be trying and failing badly at dispelling.

Oh hey, there was Jiraiya of the Legendary Three, whose very unique forehead protector with the kanji for "oil" had abruptly been replaced by Hinata, and almost instantly thereafter by Tora, while he was busy peeping. Ouch, that must hurt, because the demon cat (and its ancestors for generations since Konoha's founding) was selected from its mother's litter as the one that enjoyed walks in the form of visiting Konoha the most often. Legend had it that when the First Hokage was dividing up the Tailed Beasts, he brought back some kittens born to the Two-Tails, and Tora was from that lineage. As a side note, due to frequent road trips (read: long-distance runs) the daimyo's wife had to use Transformation Technique to fake being quite as… fat… as most Genin teams saw her as. As another side note, it was only during the Third's reign that catching Tora was demoted to a D-rank mission, to make Genin more likely to come in contact with the menace.

Wait… what the hell was this presence on his back right now after Tora appeared on Jiraya's head? No… no… NO NONONONONONONONO TORA HAD **NOT** BEEN ON TOP OF HIM WITHOUT HIM NOTICING AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Tobi screamed and almost reflexively cast Divine Authority (Kamui) at Hinata, who was trying to undo Naruto's Transformation and hadn't noticed him, at the same time that the Nine-Tails chakra Hinata had been injected with through the Gate of Beginnings destabilized. The Ninth Gate of the human body was unknown to the Ninja World, because no one ever got past the Gate of Death during the activation sequence.

The Gate of Beginnings was positioned as per the reality of all life, and was in fact the first gate to have ever existed. Life was a Time Abyss, in that technically the earliest ancestor of a particular lineage of life is still alive within that lineage, and all the lineages it branched into. As one looked into one's cells, they could look back through a practical eternity. The Gate of Beginnings told this truth, and the true purpose of all life.

Everything that lives is born to work to increase their genetic contribution to the next generation. Organismal death was irrelevant so long as one's genes increase in frequency. That was why the Gate of Beginnings was the first to exist, before even the Gate of Death, for life only existed after self-replicating or mutually-assisting replicating molecules did.

It was too bad that Hinata, when the enormous chakra infusion practically detonated inside her, was too overloaded by the sheer pain of it burning through and out of her to realize what was happening. She could only vent it into the technique cast on her as it sucked her up, and that meant tearing through the fabric of reality to a place which was unusually receptive to such events. After all, if one gazed long into the Time Abyss that was life, the Abyss gazes back.

* * *

 _Roanoke Abyss, October 31, 3849 AD_

"Unknown energy buildup!" Hannah jerked awake from where she'd been dozing as the alarm klaxons went off. "The disturbance is extremely small, only a little bigger than the average human!"

"Mavors are still being trained on the anomaly and will be ready in fifteen seconds if needed. Strategic missiles are prepped and ready." Hannah said as she scanned her cursor over those units and noted their readiness. "Scientists should prepare to retreat, just in case this is the start of another Seraphim Imperium incursion." She'd sent off Fran, Ariel, Hackett, and Seth-Thauum (of the Seraphim Separatists) to enjoy a nice vacation, and because she was feeling a little too pampered by her new husband. Apparently when they'd basically adopted the three brats that showed up here two and a half years ago during the Seraphim War, Fran had learnt plenty from that Shinji kid. He'd been so good at parenting during those trying days that after those other-universe kids were sent off, Hannah had brought him home to meet her family—an incredibly stupid idea—and he'd talked to his parents (who were still alive) about their upcoming wedding.

Needless to say neither that son of the Aeon Illuminate or that daughter of the Cybran Nation were going to ever bring any of their planned children to meet their grandparents. As far as the older generation were concerned, they would all be abominations that should not exist so soon after the end of the Infinite War. UEF-Aeon or UEF-Cybran relationships were far more tolerated, but between the Illuminate and the Nation? There was far too much bad blood… or so everyone said.

"Recall Ariel, Xavier, Steven and Seth as soon as possible, have them all wait the next system over if need be." Hannah ordered as she moved the nearest squadrons of patrolling ships and aircraft to orbit the anomaly. They would watch for what came out, and were ordered to train their weapons toward the event just in case.

"The anomaly is stabilizing… and just ejected something human-sized. It's winding down now." The scientists reported, too late, because Hannah was already manoeuvring a Silver-class Tier 1 submarine into position—she was less familiar with the controls of the UEF Tigershark, and the Aeon and Seraphim units were too rounded to be used for such a pick-up—to pick up the strange girl who'd dropped out and was now floating face-down in the water. The scientists had already boarded a boat which would take them to the girl to give first aid, and to scan her to try to determine where the hell she came from.

It had been two years since the last time Roanoke Abyss had disgorged visitors from another universe, and much longer since the last time the place had manifested teleportation-attempters from a random lost colony. That particular case had been quite horrifying in that the ruling class engineered giant biomechanical monstrosities called "Titans" to corral the populace and keep them obedient. The ruling class of that planet had very quickly been put down, the populace liberated, and assimilated by the United Earth Federation. It was barely ten years later that the Aeon Illuminate assaulted the planet and everyone who could or did not evacuate in time died, but that's another story.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm operating on a 5-km radius for Konoha, based on a certain calculation involving the Hokage Mansion vs. Gamabunta, and then the Mansion versus the Hokage Mountain carvings, and then the carvings' width versus Konoha's width. That actually only got about 3.25 km, but I'm noting several inaccuracies and bulking up the number a bit. Other calculations have sometimes given a 1-kilometer radius. Any bigger and the wall gets unreasonably huge to guard to any degree, and the population ends up insanely huge compared to what we can expect from the show (e.g. at best something like 10K people… which I'll have to bulk up to at least 50K to make consistent with the Fourth Shinobi World War number requirements for 80K from all the major and minor villages put together).

REVIEW PLEASE!


	2. Scarred For Life

**A/N:** I fixed an error in the previous chapter as I intended to start with Hannah trying to calm Hinata down through a translator, then forgot to remove the "Shortly before previous scene" part.

I deeply regret to inform you that over the course of this fic, it is almost certain that Hinata will die in the conventional sense, and likely even in the sense of brain death, at least once, if not more times. Unfortunately, the Coalition factions do not appreciate the idea of their local friendly liaison staying dead, so Hinata is going to have an existential crisis at some point, almost certainly… And a few other ninja will also be waking up in the morgue at some point, most likely. Thanks to a really good Team 8 fic I read where Kurenai got killed off, I'm thinking of something on the order of "Asuma, are you _sure_ this doesn't count as necrophilia on both our parts?"

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Chapter 2: Scarred For Life

 _Hidden Leaf Village, March 25, 12 Years A9 (After Nine-Tails)_

"That is NOT how the Transformation Technique is supposed to work." Hiashi Hyuuga informed the two sheepish-looking Academy teachers as they stood in the Hokage's office.

Sarutobi was very much enjoying this reprieve from paperwork, however brief. Of course, he would not, for the sake of village harmony, inform Hiashi that he'd gotten an eyeful when he'd looked outside at an inopportune time. Finding a very naked adult version of Hinata Hyuuga clinging to one's window frame in place of a potted vine was a very interesting sight indeed, especially the hardening pink nubs squished against the—AHEM! Anyhow, it seemed to confirm Jiraiya's claims about the True Hyuuga Bloodline. This conversation in his office was, of course, AFTER Hiruzen ordered ANBU to spread the word to search for a certain Hyuuga, and bring her in after covering her up with some manner of clothing.

"Well, I do know one person, only one though, whose transformation really does work for real." Mizuki noted. "It would take an obscene amount of chakra though, not something I think Hinata could pull off. She probably just got a bastardized variant of it."

Hiashi sighed… who the hell had taught Hinata the secret Hyuuga ladies' technique to maintain the appearance that the clan satisfied the trope of "Attractive Elite", at least until their bodies simply gave out on them with old age? "…Who taught Hinata that technique?" He really hoped it was not who Mizuki was suggesting.

"Well Uzumaki Naruto does a solid Transformation." Mizuki stated, blushing red at the thought of the time the definitely non-illusory—because damn they were hefty—boobs had been rested on his head by a joking Uzumaki who'd just done a Replacement technique with Mizuki's bag. That had been during the pre-test preparation when they talked about the necessary Techniques and Uzumaki had offered to demonstrate. Since he was always good for laughs, both Iruka and Mizuki had approved. Mizuki had teased Iruka later about how he'd been upset, claiming it was because "Naruko" had not rested her breasts on the other Chunin's head instead. Much to Mizuki's astonishment, Iruka had actually blushed at that. Laughter and verbal sparring ensued.

Hiashi sighed "Okay then… I hear he was the first one she appeared in front of in her less than dressed state, besides you two?"

"Well, Sakura Haruno noted that he was expelling large amounts of red chakra from his nose and mouth after realizing what he was looking at, and that a large amount seemed to make its way into Hinata, who showed up standing and straddling his lap, because she'd Replaced with his goggles, before she Replaced herself out of the Academy entirely and, uh…" There wasn't really a good way to say that the "Byakugan Princess" had gone practically streaking across Konoha in an adult form before suddenly disappearing.

Hiashi facepalmed, remembering the exceedingly unfortunate (for him) times Hitomi had gotten a good long exposure to Kushina's chakra in a non-combat environment. There had been certain… undignified episodes within the Main House afterward, such as him finding himself suddenly clinging to the ceiling corners of rooms like a long-haired spider whenever his wife spooked him somehow. The result was that Hinata was born when he was nearing thirty years old, despite Hitomi not being all that much younger than he and them having been married for quite some time. Due to excessive exertion and exhaustion his wife had practically had him on a leash with sheer terror even without being hopped up on Nine-Tails chakra. Well, at least, given she'd used a solid Transformation, Hinata was still too shy, thankfully, to rape the boy right in front of the whole waiting room. The brat would probably be traumatized for life if she had reacted the way Hitomi did, particularly as this particular exposure had to be abnormally lustful instead of just a slow, calmly burning heat…

He sighed, before finally stating "…And my daughter wonders why I told her to try not to come into contact with his chakra."

"Ah yes, I remember the last time Biwako came into contact with a good dose of non-combative Nine-Tails chakra. Asuma was born a little under ten months later, because I was a prisoner in my own home and tower for about two weeks before she stopped seeking young Kushina" The child had been clueless as to why Biwako wanted to sniff her chakra wisps, but had been bought with ramen "out for… samples. I only tried to escape once, and crawling with just my chin was… too slow before she could come back." Sarutobi said, smiling in his usual grandfatherly fashion while containing laughter at the two Chunin gaping and Hiashi's very honest attempt to hide himself in his sleeve. Either that or Hiashi was trying to hide his laughter, since Hitomi had surely put him through worse due to being a good friend of Kushina's.

For the record, Hinata's lack of hugs growing up was not because Hiashi and the Hyuuga clan in general were frigid assholes. It was because Hinata resembled her mother to a disturbing degree and Hiashi did not do well with soft hands of whatever size grabbing his face and turning it around to get attention from anyone with indigo hair thanks to being scarred (and scared) for life. Well, there WAS that time when he bribed some Nine-Tails chakra out of Naruto with ramen in hopes of meeting his wife's stamina when she was high on it, but he didn't like to talk about that, despite the result literally speaking for itself a couple years later. It had been too enjoyable for his hard-ass image to even go over in review.

As a side note, Naruto did not know why the Hyuuga stopped bribing him with ramen to get chakra wisps off of him after he was kicked out of the orphanage. He supposed after the incident when he was seven that it was because they too realized that he was an evil monster that everyone should be happy to see dead. He'd been beaten to a pulp by a mob, had all sorts of chunks (including his pee-pee) hacked off him, and stuffed in a garbage can to die. Teuchi and Ayame Ichiraku had found and saved him, and from that day forth his love for ramen matured into a near-obsession. His research into why they had cut his privates off eventually led to the Sexy Technique and other such distraction techniques.

In other news, we should point out that for your health and safety, it is not recommended to tell Hanabi about her parents' experiments with using Nine-Tails chakra as a recreational (or procreational) drug. We also point out that while the official cause of death of the ANBU and Biwako during the Nine-Tails Attack was due to being assaulted by some strange man in an orange mask with one eye-hole, speaking of the unofficial cause was very foolish. The ANBU all eventually exhausted each other due to over-exposure to Nine-Tails chakra, and later all attempted to resign only for the Third to hit them over the heads for being stupid. Then they were given a quick briefing as to the effects of non-combative Nine-Tails chakra on humans and strictly forbidden from even contemplating committing suicide in shame.

As for Biwako… well, there were very good reasons the Third Hokage was spotted monkeying around all over the very confused (and very reasonably angry about being locked up for about a century) Nine-Tails that night, and it was certainly NOT as a distraction. He was busy avoiding the line of sight and chakra senses of his berserk wife, who'd probably get them both arrested (for law and order purposes, even the former Hokage couldn't be seen to be above the law) for exhibitionism if she caught him. She had abandoned hunting the ANBU after spotting him because foxes were for the most part monogamous… which meant he had to use Jiraiya's "Ultimate Pervert Technique: Get The Fuck Out". Some witnesses claim the Nine-Tails had been rolling about in laughter that night more than anything else, but that was another story. It was right up there with the conspiracy theories that the Nine-Tails had only been having bad allergies that night and sneezing all over the place instead of actively trying to destroy Konoha. Ahem, anyhow, Hiruzen had been too blinded by fox chakra—which he was busy shielding himself against—to have any chakra sense left, so he'd been quite sure she was faking distress to bait him to aid her. Afterward, he was quite horrified to realize that Biwako really did have a heart attack during the Nine-Tails Attack from over-excitement and over-exertion.

They were currently waiting on news from the ANBU or the Hyuuga population currently combing the village and training fields. The Hyuuga Clan Elders were practically foaming at the mouth over the idea of an unsealed Byakugan wandering around with functionally no security whatsoever. Hiashi had been surprised when his father had stabbed them all verbally with the claim that any difficulty with retrieving Hinata would surely be due to their constant demeaning of the girl making her too embarrassed to emerge from whatever hidey-hole she'd found. Given Hinata's skill at the ninja arts in general and the size of Konoha and its outlying areas, it would be no great surprise if she took half a day to be found. Hiashi would wait downstairs in the waiting room of the Hokage Tower to be close to any news, while his father held down the fort at the clan compound. Mizuki and Iruka eventually got dismissed to go back and resume the Academy Graduation Tests.

* * *

 _Back at the Academy Graduation Test…_

Unsurprisingly, to everyone involved, given Naruto was still venting wisps of red chakra instead of just his usual abnormally huge blue glow, Naruto Uzumaki managed to fail. "I can't believe he didn't catch my hints for this whole year… I thought we pranksters were supposed to be observant!" Iruka complained after Naruto left. "How did he not get my references to use of overwhelming numbers to overcome low chakra control and stupidly high minimum expenditure levels?"

"I don't know…" Mizuki said, not adding anything else about his plan for the night since, while Iruka had an inkling he was planning something, it would be better if Iruka at least initially thought he had turned traitor. It would make any interplay and exchange more convincing. Hopefully any doubts from this event that somehow weren't cleared up would not affect Tsubaki's career given she'd already been pushed into breaking up with him. Maybe after this stunt, if the kid actually handed the scroll over, he could be counted as having proven his loyalty and not be denied at least a shot at the Jonin Exams. Now, Mizuki wasn't particularly enthusiastic about taking more field missions, compared to the cushy and fairly risk-free Academy job, but it was the principle of having a choice to take the Exams if he wanted to!

Mizuki grimaced internally at the thought of how the rumours would probably initially sound before the Hokage hopefully cleared him. Probably something about stealing the scroll and running to Orochimaru, HAH! If he was actually stupid enough to think going to a guy who promised power but had a habit of discarding subordinates as tools—just look at Anko!—was a good idea then he'd probably deserve whatever they could come up with. He'd been lucky he'd protested to Orochimaru about it being an accident instead of stayed quiet when the Sannin complimented him on his mission accident back in the day, before the Snake Sannin turned traitor. Otherwise the Sannin would probably have given him some manner of cursed seal which would have affected his judgement!

Mizuki's mental grimace grew deeper as he stepped outside and saw the Uzumaki sitting on a swing. Hopefully Tsubaki wouldn't kill him over tricking the brat into stealing the Scroll of Seals—well, the lower-security one, because the Hokage certainly wouldn't keep the REAL forbidden techniques all listed and sitting around, right? Or was it refuge in audacity?—and pretending to be a traitor to get Iruka to affirm a positive opinion of the kid, while hopefully getting him to learn the Shadow Clone. Mizuki was rightfully worried about whether the Academy could stand another year of Naruto.

Actually, no, maybe he should be more worried about what the brat would do to him with the techniques learnt when he attacked Iruka with his blunted weapons. Hopefully Iruka would catch on once hit a couple times and cooperate with him in playing it out properly. What the hell the Third was thinking not telling the kid about his tenant, Mizuki had no idea, but given all the risks the kid took it was fast becoming a danger to the village. He did not intend to ever have to be exposed to that oppressive, burning chakra again just because the kid got himself killed taking another dumb risk. It wasn't as if they could afford losing Sarutobi right now to seal the beast again…

Well, just because it was an S-rank secret didn't mean he couldn't let the kid figure it out on his own with a few unsubtle hints. Watching Iruka trying to be subtle with the kid was a worse headache than the one time Tsubaki listened to rumours and went sniffing around the kid while he was trying to summon his chakra and therefore bleeding off a crapload of the red vapor. The consequences involved a massive headache (in his lower head) for Mizuki and began his opinion change of Naruto from "Bleh, it's the Demon Brat…" to "What the hell are they doing abusing the Nine-Tails' Container like that?"

As long as he said the right things after forcing Iruka to confess that he saw Naruto as a brother figure, there should be enough doubt in the boy's mind for him to ask the Hokage to hear him out. Now, before anyone privy to his thought process called him a manipulative bastard, such as his actually telling his dear Tsubaki about the chakra rumour in the first place, well, he was a ninja. What did they think he was supposed to be, an un-manipulative walnut (other than the "EAT ME, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO" smell)? Wait… _I must really be paranoid if I'm narrating my life to thin air… hey, if anyone's listening, I actually told Tsubaki that as a joke originally, I didn't expect her to take it seriously… why won't anyone believe me? Even Tsubaki was upset because she thought I was just refusing to admit tricking her, just because she hadn't been in the mood for a month, though she wasn't upset about thinking it was a trick… as if I would do that to someone I intended to marry, bah! Not to mention if I was any less of a ninja I'd probably have been fucked to death… I'm supposed to be smart enough in public opinion to not commit attempted suicide by sex!_

Mizuki opened his mouth and began speaking to the Nine-Tails' Container. He very pointedly ignored the little voice in his head that said that if he'd gotten a Cursed Seal from Orochimaru all those years ago he probably WOULD have done that sort of exploitation of Tsubaki's affections, if not worse.

* * *

A/N: Quite literally, sex changes the path of history, and for a Mizuki that's slightly less stupid than his supposedly smart canon counterpart, that means a lot.

I always thought the scene was sketchy, because if Iruka had been hit in the back by a shuriken that huge he should be DEAD… unless it was all a set-up.

I am seriously contemplating having the Uchiha Clan still alive in this alternate history. Maybe Mikoto snuck into her best friend's son's home to get high, and Nine-Tails chakra without consciousness could beat out Sharingan bullshit? Because I really don't see a Hinata who has even a few Coalition units put at her disposal (built by the whole platoon of ACU pilots vacationing on the planet) letting Sasuke get away, particularly after almost killing Naruto. She'd probably send a strategic bomber after him, then pretend to have no idea of why they could never find even a trace of him. That would derail the entire plot though…

* * *

 _Roanoke Abyss, October 31, 3849 AD, same general timeframe as previous scene._

"You're reasonably sure she's descended from a bunch of Japanese cultural enthusiasts who wandered off to found their own colony in the pre-Earth Empire era." Hannah echoed the man flatly, five minutes after the very naked girl had fallen into the sea on her front, four and a half minutes since she'd been borne out of the water by her surfacing submarine, three minutes since the boat had fished her up, and two minutes after return to the science facilities. Fortunately, the water here was fairly warm, so hypothermia was no issue.

"She has no genetic markers for Empire era genetic and biochemical modifications at all, she's basically Pre-Empire Baseline Human in terms of speed, strength and durability at present. There is a slightly higher than expected degree of homozygosity so we suspect her family is a bit inbred, but that makes sense considering her eyes are clearly not baseline human eyes. The Psi boosting we're determining so far should be able to let her see Coalition active camouflaged units at a hundred meters when it's active, or maybe more. It still can't pierce cloaking or active stealth if the unit has it." The head scientist shrugged helplessly as she leered at him. "She's just unconscious with nothing clearly wrong with her other than the unusual eyes, we can wake her at any time."

"Xav, Ariel, Steven, Seth, you are cleared to come over at any time. Xav, Steven, Seth, please take care of the base, the girl showed up naked in the middle of nowhere, she doesn't need to be surprised by an unfamiliar man or a most likely unfamiliar… uh…" Hannah thought of a way to make this sound less rude.

"I do point out that the Seraphim also have common sense to normally not make scared juvenile females have to deal with much larger, unfamiliar adult males upon waking up in an unfamiliar environment." Seth-Thauum pointed out through his translator. "And for fuck's sake—interesting how all cultures we Seraphim have ever encountered value mating quite highly and have some variation of that profanity, but it makes sense biologically—how many times must I tell you that 'alien' is not at all rude when you are talking about introducing a bunch of humans to me? Because from the humans' perspective, I am an alien, just as if I was to introduce you to a bunch of my people I'd use our term for aliens!"

"Did you use to be a business-person of some type? You're pretty good at these sales pitches." Steven said as the three dispersed to different islands in the Roanoke Abyss operational area. Ariel in the meantime was marching her ACU over to the science building, where Hannah had already docked.

Seth blinked "Did I never tell you all that I used to work for a used personal land vehicle dealer?" It would be a very bad idea to tell them he had been a _lawyer_ working for a used personal land vehicle dealer before joining the Separatist movement, given the jokes shared by all cultures with lawyers, oh yes… Wait… he was picking up that annoying verbal tic too just because he was probably the Seraphim with the second most contact with that Doctor Brackman! Uh oh…

"Well, no, I think it's because you've heard too many used car salesmen jokes?" Major Steven Hackett ventured.

Seth snorted, though to human ears it was more like a wheezing gasp, despite how human and Seraphim body language was fairly similar. "Obviously."

Meanwhile, the two women were making their way to the bedside of the strange new arrival. "I presume you've given her the basic vaccination regimen? And I presume that you've put her under a mild paralytic so she doesn't panic and we don't have to restrain her too much?" Ariel asked Hannah, who nodded as the scientists had already informed her of this earlier.

"Wake her up." The black-haired Cybran instructed the brunette Aeon woman, who nodded and activated her Psionics after deactivating the room's Psi suppression field emitters. Then Ariel stared at Hannah, whose facial circuitry patterns, while normally a fashion statement of Cybran pride, had lit up brightly in automatic defence against the charging of nearby Psionic energies. "Don't mind me, it's a built-in defence that I can't suppress."

Ariel snorted "Makes me feel a lot better about Fran learning something from you while fucking your brains out, maybe literally."

Hannah sneered at that… "You put too much stock onto those rumours and fetish websites that dehumanize us Cybrans. Now, can you wake her up or do we have to use medications?"

We should note that there _were_ sex dolls engineered with more than the standard orifice count. There were also simulation suits for both males, females, and everything in between (one did not go 1800-some years from the advent of spacefaring technology without engineering futanari and other variations) that did their best to emulate what the sensory mind-fuck of having half of one's brain smashed in, or being otherwise bodily damaged, might be like. Living in the 39th century didn't prevent men from liking to stick it in any soft, warm hole they could… or some more adventurous people in general wondering what being able to do something might feel like, be it from the giving or receiving end. Hannah was basically a boring prude compared to the post-war youth and their general air of celebration and experimentation. Thankfully Fran preferred things vanilla—which was still a curious term as the vanilla bean had been one of the most expensive spices from Earth plants, second only to saffron, when it entered slang as the term for "boring" because almost everyone liked it.

"Easy there, I can nudge her awake with just my mind." Ariel's fingertips emitted the green motes fairly typical of Aeon Psionics, compared to the purple or red of Cybrans (very few of whom were Psi-sensitive) and the blue of UEF Psionics.

Hinata Hyuuga's first impression upon waking was pain… or rather, the total lack thereof. The feeling of her organs frying themselves within her and the (in her mind) waterfall of hot liquids running down her legs that she remembered before blacking out had completely vanished. Something had gone horribly wrong when she noticed it was actually Naruto she'd managed to replace in the face of with his nose practically buried in her Transformation-granted pubic hair. A burning deep inside her had begun then, escalating as she used the Replacement Technique to try to escape to a more private space in panic until it felt like her organs were melting and being fried inside her.

She had almost thought from the pain that the scorching hot liquid trailing down her legs must have been a mixture of blood or her own boiling body fat. The Gentle Fist didn't burn nearly as many calories as, say, Might Guy's Taijutsu techniques did, and she didn't diet, hence her absurd thought of body fat. By the end, she had just been looking for somewhere to curl up die in peace and shame, a shame that would be far greater if she couldn't release the Transformation before she died. It seemed to take as much chakra to deactivate as it had to activate, for some reason… Fortunately, she'd been able to release it, shortly before she either lost consciousness or died.

Hinata opened her eyes slowly… the room was dark, with reddish glowing panels on the walls and lights pointed up toward the ceiling to reduce glare. She gulped at the sight of the dark-coloured ceiling and the mostly reddish lighting "Is this hell?" Was she really so very inadequate as a person as to have ended up in hell after she died? Perhaps basically streaking through the village was really so terrible… no doubt many villagers had been scarred for life by the sight of her.

"No, little one. You are safe here, under the protection of the Aeon Illuminate, the Cybran Nation, the United Earth Federation, and the Seraphim Separatists." A deep, but still noticeably feminine voice said to her left, and she looked—looking too fast might be taken as hostility, so she didn't turn too fast—to see a brown-haired woman with brown eyes, wearing gleaming white and green armour that seemed to clash horrendously with their present surroundings. "We chose this room for you so that waking would not hurt your eyes or other senses after we found you and healed you."

Another voice spoke now, this one slightly higher-pitched, in some foreign language Hinata could not understand. Then a speaker of some sort mounted in front of the woman to Hinata's right, dressed in black and red armour, began to provide a translation, considerably louder than the quiet speech of the woman. Though the device had rather mediocre grammar Hinata still understood the gist of "We are currently tracing the spatial distortion so that we may return you home. You are lucky that we kept an outpost around this location, which we call 'Roanoke Abyss', because it is a weak spot where many previous spatial distortions have delivered guests to us. My name is Hannah Shepard, I welcome you on behalf of the Cybran Nation, and the other woman is Ariel Williams of the Aeon Illuminate."

Hinata tried to dispel a Genjutsu, by stopping her chakra flow momentarily. The women stayed there. She did not dare power up the Byakugan in case this was real and she offended these women. The completely foreign yet clearly organized language of this "Hannah Shepard" pointed to this not necessarily being a total delusion. She would turn on her Byakugan later, when they weren't watching so closely, just in case they were real.

"Our doctors have healed you to your body's natural state, as far as your body seems to understand it, though there are some… issues that we will talk about later, when you are more recovered from the shock of being a stranger in a strange new world. Walk with us please, child, and we shall tell you more about us, and then go see what progress has been made in sending you home." The woman extended her gloved hand, and Hinata took it. If they wanted to do anything to her she would already be dead, or mind-controlled, or drugged, or any number of things.

"Yes, Ariel-sama." Hinata said, presuming that that was the woman's family name. She found she could move without difficulty… and then realized how much this woman dwarfed her by. She was 147cm at present, while the green-and-white-armoured woman towered over her at what Hinata estimated to be about 196cm, counting armour, though the boots didn't seem to be all that thick. The black-and-red-armoured woman was slightly shorter, and as the lights brightened in the room, Hinata picked out dull dark lines along the woman's cheeks, tracing some manner of pattern… a compressed seal perhaps?

"You may be curious about my facial circuitry. It is a fashion and factional pride statement of almost all Cybrans." Hannah pointed to her cheeks upon noticing where Hinata was looking. Contrary to popular belief, the Byakugan, while apparently pupil-less, was still well able to see normally, such as when chakra in a particular area was being jammed… On the other hand, it also made the pupil actually show itself instead of its usual chakra-camouflaged state intended to make enemies not know what you're focusing on.

Hinata didn't even notice that she was only looking at what her eyes were pointed toward until they made their way from the dark-themed room—apparently the Cybran style of architecture—into a blue-floored, grey-walled hallway. "Um, is this… United Earth Federation" The words felt strange as she copied what the woman who spoke her language said, knowing it was almost certainly not what they actually called the faction in their other language "Or Seraphim style?"

"This is UEF style, not Seraphim." Hannah explained.

"Yui-Efu?" Hinata tried.

"U-E-F, short for United Earth Federation, in one of our two official languages." Hannah corrected with a smile, then ran it through her translator as they exited a door to the outside of the building, the roof, to be specific. "Now that we are out here, could you activate your Psionics and see if you can see anything out there?"

"Um, I don't know what you are talking about." She faked ignorance despite suspecting…

"I believe the Japanese culture calls it 'chakra'. If you are descended from a lost settlement of Japanese culture enthusiasts as we suspect you are, the term should be familiar to you given I can sense your Psionic aptitude." Ariel said simply "I believe you have a specially adapted set of eyes that you could be using?"

"Yes…" Hinata squeaked, not expecting them to have discovered her Byakugan so easily… then again the White Eye bloodline was really quite obvious even at a glance… and they hadn't thought her to be blind…

She pumped chakra to her eyes, and she looked.

* * *

 **A/N:** Review Replies!

 **Venomancer** : Why thank you! I like writing crack because it requires somewhat less plot consistency, and asymmetric match-ups produce the most hilarity IMHO.

 **BH18** : Honestly I can cross SupCom with just about any other fandom and have a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately, Hinata managed to transform back before Tobi quite realized that Tora had been on top of him without him noticing, and by the time Hinata could realize she was in danger she was having a chakra overload problem…

REVIEW PLEASE!


	3. Of Midgets and Colossi

**A/N:** Given how in the map "The Scar" which is supposed to be a land formation surrounded by lava, you can build naval factories and units ON THE SURROUNDING LAVA, you'd think UEF firebombs would have no effect on Coalition units whatsoever… well, I'll figure out an explanation for this, I suppose, or just forbid non-aerial units from crossing lava so easily/quickly. Then again if your means of resource gathering include drawing mass from deep within a planet's mantle, and recycling it after a battle by reinjection of the mass… Your tech level is going to be pretty solid.

I am astonished that no one commented on the implications of the last chapter, in the sense that **Naruto is going to be VERY popular among the ladies as he grows up, assuming Sakura and Tsunade don't punch him into orbit before Hinata can react…**

* * *

Chapter 3: Of Midgets and Colossi

 _Roanoke Abyss, October 31, 3849 AD, same general timeframe as previous scene._

"Would you care to explain to us why the doctors found evidence that your joints have been put under great stress, worse than that of a practicing young martial artist?" Hannah asked gently, while the indigo-haired girl in front of her stood still. "And could you tell us your name now that you are hopefully assured that you are not hallucinating?"

Then a drop of saliva began making its way down her jaw, and Ariel sighed, before pulling out a small towel and wiping it away. The girl flinched away, before blushing in embarrassment. Given the girl's lack of modifications other than her unusual eyes, the bodily stress marks of a child soldier, the Psionics, and the primitive weapons in the girl's thigh holster, it was laughably certain that the Japanese cultural enthusiasts were in Medieval Stasis, if not worse. But of course, noting that would be rude without proper build-up… after which it would simply be blunt observations, since rudeness could not exist between such disparate entities in terms of power. On the other hand Hannah doubted it would be any ruder than the girl's first introduction to the Coalition's military being from the roof of a hundred-meter-tall research center, seeing a 200-meter-tall Galactic Colossus standing next to the center, completely within the estimated maximum radius of her special eyes.

Fortunately, the strange eyes were NOT noted as being able to pierce structural integrity fields, hence they could put on this show. Even Omni sensors were incapable of that, despite piercing stealth they were still unable to even tell unit type until the target came close enough for identification sensors able to pierce active camouflage… though those could be defeated by cloaking, which meant Omni only really defeated stealth and jamming.

The Galactic Colossus was the only unit parked close enough for the girl to see, but it was very much enough to make the point. "Xav, you can move the GC away now, I think we've managed to shock her badly enough. Park it in formation with the other units we arranged to welcome our guest." Hannah transmitted to her husband, then turned to Hinata, trying again with "What is your name, young one?"

"Hyuuga, Hinata." She said, suddenly feeling extremely small and insignificant. It did not take much observational skill to recognize that Ariel had the same personal colouring scheme and aesthetic as the gigantic machine she'd just been shown, indicating they were on the same side. Said gigantic machine strode off at quite an incredible pace—it took stately steps, but given the length of its legs, that was quite fast—until within a few seconds of walking away it blurred and faded into the background, even with her bloodline… wait…

"Uh… Hinata-chan, I believe is the correct honorific… bah, may I just call you Hinata? I am not good with all these Japanese honorifics." Hannah said, noticing she was distracted even after the Colossus left her vision radius. "What are you looking at?"

"As you wish, Hannah-sama. May I ask why there are almost no footprints?" With how huge the thing was it should have shook the ground as it walked… and it was unlikely to be an illusion as her Byakugan told her.

"Our sensors are good enough to see prints and seismic tremors from a long, long distance off. That is why the prints and tremors are remarkably light for all of our machines thanks to our technology, despite their often great mass." Ariel explained. "From what we could tell from your Psionics, combined with child soldier training, and the weapons in your thigh holster, we are almost completely sure that your world is currently in and most likely stuck in what we call a medieval era. We won't be able to do anything really if it turns out you were displaced in time as well as space, because messing with time doesn't seem to work for us for some reason, but if it was only space then we will be able to take you home."

Hannah explained their plan further "If we are able, we will probably spend a nice vacation there while making contact with the locals, probably introducing them to the galactic community at large, namely the Coalition factions. Because they seem to be able to send things and people out by teleportation we'd probably establish a protective perimeter around your planet in case of contact with more hostile factions in the galaxy. The Coalition does not approve of suffocating children's potential by making them learn how to destroy before learning to create, so we'll probably nudge them away from that. How old are you? Eleven years old? The colonists left when we were already able to engineer planetary orbits and rotations over the long term, so most likely your years will be comparable to ours."

"Twelve and three months." Hinata answered, wondering if these people would seek to just destroy all the traditions she'd come from. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, in the case of the Hyuuga Clan…

"You're only 147 centimeters, at twelve and a quarter years a healthy Coalition girl would almost certainly, with three standard deviations, be between 155 and 170 centimeters. It is probably something to do with the soldier training stunting your growth or maybe your lack of Empire-era modifications… it cannot be good for your future size and strength regardless." Ariel noted. "Does your world still have frequent cases of death from childbirth?" Hinata nodded "That means you almost certainly started off at about 50 centimeters, five to ten centimeters bigger than post-Empire human babies. Because we have larger mothers and smaller newborns, birthing is considerably less risky for us, and our medical technology makes it basically a risk-free business, though still painful and stressful."

Hannah gave a grunt of agreement, adding "If not for that then the Cybran Nation would all be born from artificial wombs, considering we were losing an average of four million civilians a day fighting the United Earth Federation and Aeon Illuminate for twelve hundred goddamned years."

Hinata blinked, looking between the two, before picking at her ears as she'd seen her grandfather do once when one of the Elders had said something completely off the wall. The man had been found to have accidentally mixed sake and a sleeping pill earlier that day, as opposed to his medication for a chronic injury, which was to be taken with alcohol. That explained why he had said something so completely nuts… and started an investigation as to who might want to assassinate the elder in question.

However, Ariel's sigh and comments made her think Hannah was actually serious "We've been over this a number of times, but it's hard to forget for good reasons. The four trillion deaths of the Infinite War average out to over nine mega-deaths per day, for twelve hundred years. The distribution over time was about four-three-two for the Cybran Nation, United Earth Federation, and Aeon Illuminate respectively. Fortunately, Cybrans mature faster and breed more, hence they did not get wiped out despite starting with much less population than the Earth Empire and later UEF or, once we really got rolling, the Aeon Illuminate. We lost another trillion humans in only three years with the Seraphim War, before we managed to grind the Imperium's offensive to a halt and push back. Encountering the Separatists fighting their way out from the Quantum Rift was a great surprise, but they helped seal the Rift and seek only to live in peace while trying out various forms of government, so we tolerated them. The current combined human population of the Coalition is three trillion and growing, while the Seraphim Separatists have about a quarter billion, but are experiencing a baby boom now that their future is secure. Without as much stress from war, policies encouraging people to have children have been reduced greatly or repealed altogether, so the birth rate is dropping off precipitously, particularly within the Cybran Nation, who actually fared the best in the Seraphim War." Ariel explained to Hinata.

Hannah spoke now "I'm one of five survivors of thirteen siblings, five died by the hands of the Aeon Illuminate, three by the United Earth Federation. It is no surprise that everyone else in my family except my littlest sister Jane no longer wish to associate with me for marrying an Aeon ACU pilot. They understand the political need to appear conciliatory and unified, but they are still completely repulsed by the fact that Xavier Fran—call him Fran, he prefers his family name despite technically having been disowned for marrying me—is my choice of husband." Hannah grimaced toward the end of her exposition. Most of her dead siblings had died before she was even born, but the few that had died after were what drove her to choose the career of ACU pilot. Then the Seraphim War resulted in her meeting one of the Aeon commanders with the greatest reputation for tolerance and she found him a bit more likable and nice than she'd have preferred.

Hinata was still mentally partly stuck on the "twelve hundred years" part, mouthing it silently.

Ariel was the only one among the two who could read lips in Japanese "Hinata, we called it the Infinite War for good reason. Very few people who were alive at the beginning are still alive now. The leader of the Cybran Nation, Doctor Brackman, is one such person, though right now he's a brain and spinal cord in a life-support tank, who interacts with people by hologram. Elite Commander Dostya, corresponding to General in the UEF rank system and Avatar of War in the Aeon one, is working on persuading him to get a body again, but it's been slow going. How about we show you some of the units in up close and personal fashion?"

"You would show such a thing to a stranger? What about your military secrets?"

"Your eyes cannot pierce the structural integrity fields of our units, and even if you did many of the things you see would be impossible to replicate without enough scientific capacity. Since you have a good chance of being our liaison while we make contact with your world, we think it would be good to be up front and honest. We will make sure that you aren't forced to give any information to anyone, your government, your leaders, whatever, that you do not want to." Hannah said gently. It would be interesting to meet, and study, primitives who had such interesting genetic abilities.

Then she mentally ordered her communicator to broadcast to her husband and squadron "Please order the units to deactivate all stealth measures, even active surface camouflage, once we are standing in front of a particular unit." Obviously structural fields, which dazzled scans, and internal camouflage systems would remain active, for units self-destructed if the latter approached failure, to deny the other factions sensitive knowledge. None of the Coalition factions trusted each other all that much due to the Infinite War, and there were reasonable—as acknowledged by humans and Seraphim alike—fears about the Seraphim Separatists' authenticity "We want our guest to be able to use her own eyes to see some of the units which we will be deploying during our diplomatic contact with her world." Commodore Perry's opening of Japan would have NOTHING on their contact with this world of Japanese cultural enthusiasts…

That expectation of a cakewalk was why it would count as non-combat duty. Once the Seraphim War ended, some ACU pilots had found themselves working with the unit developer crews. Others joined the exploration crews working slowly through mapping every single object in every single solar system the Coalition currently occupied. Still others, like this particular crew which were the first mixed Coalition-Separatist team, stayed on as official career soldiers and/or diplomatic representatives. The lack of war however meant they more often than not babysat scientists, just like the exploration crews.

Now, however, they had a chance to be diplomatic representatives, though in quite a different sense than they'd originally been formed for, and had sent the proposal up the line. Avatar of War Rhiza and Elite Commander Dostya paused their simulation match—they were similarly idle in peace—and gave preliminary approval, pending confirmation of where or maybe when the girl came from. General Hall, since the UEF had been so devastated by the Seraphim War that it was still running a military government at present and busy reassembling planetary parliaments for resettled planets, had given his assent just now, as it flashed up on Hannah and Ariel's visors while they were waiting for the elevator to the ground floor. Doctor Brackman and Princess Rhianne's approval arrived as they reached the ground floor. The Seraphim Cabinet, which currently ran the Separatists, had entrusted authority to Seth for such contacts, and only rubber-stamped endorsement for the affair as they approached the first row of units. It was remarkably fast by bureaucratic standards, but since relations with the Coalition were vital to the Separatists, they paid high attention to Seth-Thauum's cooperative work.

"Hinata-chan, you should walk between us, we don't want you to walk into any of the units by accident." Ariel stated as she and Hannah put their helmets on.

"Um, is the air difficult to breathe?" Hinata asked, wondering about the completely enclosed helmets.

"…Ah, right, these fully enclosed helmets aren't the best for inspiring confidence, we should just wear visors that let us see where all the units and such are instead, without projecting holograms in front of us as a virtual visor. Don't want to spoil the surprises after all." Hannah grinned at Hinata, who gulped at the prospect of some really big shocks. "Although I do note that the Galactic Colossus you saw earlier, an Aeon Illuminate design, is the second tallest land unit in the Coalition arsenal after the Seraphim-designed Ythotha, so there shouldn't be anything much more shocking until we get to the air units. We'll head out over the water for the naval units, riding on something of your choice."

"Now, before we begin, I need to ask you some questions about technology level and whether or not you can particularly comprehend the machines that you will be shown." Ariel stated in a more businesslike fashion, and Hinata gulped as they stood about in the warm day. She could not particularly tell if it was autumn or spring for this locality, but it was fairly warm. She'd been expecting an interrogation, no matter how polite, and it seemed like it was beginning.

"Is your world familiar with the biological mechanics of inheritance?" Hannah said instead, going through pretty much a checklist.

"Um, DNA? Yes, we know of that…"

"What about gunpowder weapons? Rifling? Electricity?" The weapons in her holster would suggest otherwise…

"Too loud and flashy to be used by us ninja, and not accurate enough. The Land of Iron is the most frequent user of them, because in massed formations their samurai can do quite a bit of damage with hand cannons. I'm not sure what rifling is, but we do have electricity, generators, and batteries."

Ariel frowned and asked next "Satellites? Long-distance radio communications?"

Hinata decided that since these people were clearly unthinkably more advanced, just telling the truth was the best choice "I do not know what you mean by satellites, but we do have long-distance radio using large transmitter dishes to bounce the signals off part of the atmosphere…"

The Aeon woman frowned deeper "Internal combustion engines? Recorded video? Computers?"

"We have those…"

Hannah intervened "Psionic Retardation, Ariel? Especially when it comes to warfare?"

"Definitely…" Ariel said in English, then realized that it could be seen as very rude to use such a term, switching to Japanese "We have long theorized what would happen if a society developed psionic powers before sufficiently advanced technology. It seems your world has confirmed the prevailing theory that psionic dominance would grossly delay technological growth, because why develop a strong material if one can just reinforce it with psionic powers? Why learn the laws of physics if they can simply be bypassed? Why develop a powerful and hazardous chemical explosive if the effect can be replicated by a guy shouting a few incantations? This eventually leads to a slowdown in technological development, since some inventions cannot be reached easily without understanding how reality works. Do you have aircraft which propel themselves through the air, or guided missiles?"

Hinata was thinking of how the Hyuuga Clan traditions had most likely hindered their clan's growth, and wondered if chakra was really a cursed thing. Given the stories passed down in the clan of their distant ancestor eating a cursed fruit to become the first to have chakra, it did not seem implausible… "We do not have controlled flight, except for maybe the best, or secret, wind techniques and various legendary ninja…"

Ariel nodded "Your ancestors left what is now Coalition Space about seventeen hundred years ago. They planned to begin at a technology level eight hundred years before that time in human history, but I can guess that they overshot that target. Without external intervention, as was historically needed for Japan to seriously improve its technology, the Japanese cultural enthusiasts that began your civilization were very lucky to make it this far, particularly with premature development of Psionics. I know this sounds pretty rude, but I get the feeling that you prefer things straightforward and to the point, if the guess that you are from an important bloodline and likely in the core line from your genetic markers are correct. That coupled with your shyness would mean you dislike clan politics, which means that you don't like veiled bullshit too much."

"Hopefully diplomatic contact will bring more progressive tendencies to the fore." Hinata deflected, not answering on how accurate the assessment was. This Coalition was so clearly overwhelming that she could only cooperate and hope they played nice. Curiously, they seemed to want to play nice, which made her hopeful that the Elemental Nations would similarly find peace… without anything like the Infinite War the two women in front of her spoke of. How they could coexist after such a war was mind-boggling for the young Hyuuga.

"As long as you are hopeful, Hinata, that is good. We can work with that hope, and make it come true, by Might Makes Right if need be. We can begin the show and tell whenever you are ready." Hannah stated as she stopped walking, and Ariel did too. Hinata, who'd been trailing a half-step behind the two much larger women, ceased her forward motion as well.

Hannah frowned suddenly, before saying "…What do you mean Seth can't find the switch for his units' active camouflage?" Her translator interpreted this.

"You do realize I went from helping sell used land vehicles to piloting an ACU without much training beyond video games from my youth, right? I'm searching the operator's manual right now!" Seth's translated English came through, and was translated for Hinata's benefit.

"…As you can tell, we don't take ourselves as seriously as we could." Ariel nudged Hinata gently and winked. "That was a Seraphim, one of the Coalition's four factions, though right now they're nowhere close to as significant as the human factions due to their size and population. Being basically a bunch of rebels that escaped the Seraphim Imperium into our universe from another universe doesn't allow for that big of a start… They helped end the Seraphim War, so we were agreeable to letting them stay and settle a few systems, and work on coexisting, unlike what the Earth Empire did to one of their colonies in this universe when humans first encountered them. They taught the settlers The Way before they were attacked though, and the Aeon have sought to follow The Way since our formation to avenge our teachers against the Earth Empire." Ariel explained.

Meanwhile, Hannah was wondering "You've been piloting for almost four years, Seth, you'd think you'd have looked up all the trivial details by now?"

It took quite a few moments of smelling the sea breeze before the show-off session began.

* * *

 **A/N:** The numbers in the following "chapter" are obtained from in-game size comparisons, a 5x5 km map accommodates 250 wall sections from end to end, with 3 grids on any side being unbuildable margins. When a 20m wall section is 10cm on my screen the little popgun on the Snoop Tier 1 land scout is about 1mm across. This would have it be a 20cm-caliber weapon, which fires once per 2 seconds for 2 damage per hit. That's a 200mm cannon (7.9 inches) impacting at 400m/s (tested in-game at -10 speed setting) for reasons unknown (probably because any higher than low supersonic speeds generates too big a shockwave to hide easily from sensors?).

It is exactly the same projectile speed (not very fast) as the "Light Laser" of the Spirit Tier 1 Land Scout… which is definitely not staying a laser. In fact the only laser weapons that I won't rebrand to other weapon types (usually particle beam or plasma weapons) are continuous beam weapons, such as the Cerberus, Rhino, Neptune, and so on, which are how lasers SHOULD operate.

Given this is the mid-3800s, I think having the continuous beam weapons measured in kilotons per second suddenly looks very reasonable when a 200mm shell (albeit a low velocity one) does 2 HP of damage on impact… By comparison, even Tier 1 "medium" tanks have almost 300 HP.

 **REVIEW PLEASE!**


	4. Coalition Standard Unit Catalogue, 3849

**A/N:** This chapter is dedicated to the scale and mass of units in Supreme Commander. **You are very welcome to skip this "chapter" entirely. The real plot doesn't start until the next chapter where there will be an interesting meeting.**

 **THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS "CHAPTER" IS FOR REFERENCE, FOR FUTURE OCCASIONS WHERE HINATA CALLS IN THE "I WIN" BUTTON** (having friends from distant worlds is very helpful) **. I NEED TO HAVE A CATALOGUE OF UNIT SIZES. This will also be useful for other SupCom (e.g. mostly crack due to the fact that there's some fandoms with galaxy-destroying tech level, and under that… the tech gap to the next sci-fi is a yawning abyss that has SupCom as one of the few fandoms in it) fics I shall write.**

 **Anyone who thinks it's ridiculous that a 6000-damage shot is by my estimation equivalent to 40 kilotons TNT directed yield (so more overall) should note that it only takes 4 hits to reduce 32000 tons of whatever materials the Monkeylord is made of into pieces too small to reclaim effectively…** _ **and the smallest thing that can be reclaimed in the game is a 2-ton tree**_ **. So it has to be shredded into way more than 16000 fragments (due to uneven fragmenting) from hits to the outside of the structure, with only 4 blasts. That takes… a LOT of energy.**

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Chapter 4: Coalition Standard Unit Catalogue, 3849 Edition

Subtitle: Rebalanced Since the End of the Seraphim War

 _Roanoke Abyss, October 31, 3849 AD_

"I'd like to remind the men that they're very welcome to NOT watch us as we go about showing off the Coalition military." Hannah said into the speakers before getting started, knowing full well that the guys were almost certainly watching. Damned sadists wanted to watch the… well, country bumpkin wasn't a word Hannah would use on any official document, but Hinata's reactions were almost certainly something the men were looking forward to. _Alternatively, they were waiting for her to test out the existence of a deity, narrator, or universal consciousness by leaning on the fourth wall…_ Hannah shuffled the errant thought away due to absurdity.

"Sorry, Hannah, I was just sitting around bored and decided to spectate…" Xavier Fran told his wife before he shifted his attention elsewhere… or pretended to.

"Well, Hinata, here we go, starting at the Tier 1 land units… Seth, Hackett, you ready?"

"Fran has control over all the units, because you don't want us to focus too much on spectating." Hackett replied, a hint of trolling in his tone. Seth just sent a short video of him doing the Seraphim counterpart to whistling while twiddling his thumbs.

"I swear, the moment we go off-duty and aren't in a combat situation all the men turn into giant goofballs." Hannah grumbled, grinning at the end as her translator conveyed the point to Hinata.

The girl was too busy staring up at the four units that had appeared practically out of thin air in front of them "They are big."

Hannah shrugged, since these Tier 1 units were puny from an ACU pilot's perspective… though not from the ground, of course. "I suppose so. These are the Tier 1 Land Scouts, the UEF Snoop is there, with the larger front wheel pulling the vehicle forward, with steering done by the back two wheels, which look like one from the side but due to axle positioning is really not. The turret mounts a Tomcat Machine Gun which can fire every two seconds. Length 15 meters, width 6 meters, height 7 meters to the apex, all approximate numbers. The mass is twenty-four tons. The blocky grey is standard for UEF construction, the blue shade depends on the particular pilot and is an identifier as to whose command it is under. Sometimes UEF commanders aren't any shade of blue at all, but that is unusual." The 3D rendering used when zooming in on an ACU interface didn't accurately reflect the way the vehicle turned, because the models used would be impossible to turn if the rear wheels were that tightly hemmed in by the hull. Nobody had bothered to fix them because the Tier 1 land scouts were early-battle units to be quickly replaced by better options.

"This next one is the Cybran Mole, which has a cloak but is unarmed, so it can sneak around if the enemy doesn't have radar in the area, but dies in seconds once found. It is much more fragile than the others." Ariel introduced as they walked over to the next machine, a six-legged thing with a revolving somewhat triangular piece raised above the hull at the back. "The dark colours are common for Cybran units, and the red parts depend on the commander's colours. Length-width-height, henceforth abbreviated as LWH, are 8-12-5 in meters, mass 16 tons."

"The Aeon Spirit is armed equivalently to the UEF model, is more fragile, but hovers, so it can cross bodies of water. LWH is 10-11-4, mass 16 tons" Hannah put in.

"This last one is the Seraphim Selen-2 Combat Scout, unlike the other factions the Seraphim do not use a dedicated Light Assault Bot, but the variant used by the Separatists has been improved from the original Imperium model. The torso can now traverse freely as the leg arrangement has been changed. This is the only tier 1 unit that has both cloaking and stealth, and thus requires an Omni sensor to find it, but it only has it when it is stationary and not firing, which means ramming it into moving to maintain its balance is a tactic to clear one set to "reactive" or "passive" off of mass deposits. However, that often costs valuable time and attention in the early phase of a battle, when engineers are often moved about without any of the later escorts that will auto-fire through the space above a mass 'deposit' so to speak if the engineer finds it cannot build on it. The yellow parts are colours for the particular commander's colours. LWH is 8-5-16, mass 40 tons" Ariel finished up as they walked past that unit, before turning to proceed past the row of units, which shimmered momentarily before active camouflage hid them again.

"We should alternate by unit type, less competitive." Hannah observed.

"Very well, Hannah, you can have this group then?"

"No problem. I expect you will be able to remember all the units' roles and general abilities, Hinata, given your child soldier training most likely included espionage?" The girl nodded, and Hannah smiled before three units de-cloaked in front of them "This next category are the Light Assault Bots, they are the only units able to fire while loaded onto a transport, but on these 'ghetto gunships' as we call them they will be blown apart by splash damage unless the transport has shields. They easily surpass the Selen-2 in terms of combat effectiveness, but lack any other special abilities. We have the Mech Marine with weapons on both arms and LWH 4-8-9, the Hunter with a particle gun and LWH 10-4-12, and the Flare with a sonic weapon and LWH 10-4-9. The factions they belong to should be visible enough. They are all 70 tons in mass, with the Mech Marine being the most durable, the Hunter having the best burst firepower, and the Flare being the only one with splash damage. They are very fast units."

"Aurora Light Tank, LWH 21-18-8, 104 tons. My faction's standard Tier 1 attack unit is unfortunately much more fragile than the others, but it has a longer range and hovers, so it can cross water for surprise attacks." Ariel said as they went to the next row. "I'm not going to point out which of the others is which, so guess the factions by the name and descriptions if you can. You can ask us to clarify which unit is which name at any point you wish, but I think this will make it less boring and slightly less of a 'mine is bigger than yours' show-off session."

"Thank you for your consideration, Ariel-sama." Hinata smiled. It was true that she was feeling overwhelmingly small and insignificant, but it was also true that there was no better way of convincing someone that being friends had benefits than a show of strength… These women weren't being arrogant about things, and were being very open and upfront with her. It would be bring great shame and grave dishonour upon the Hyuuga family… no, upon herself, should she be any less than fully receptive. Thus she couldn't let her legs buckle under her at these looming vehicles standing or hovering before them, even though intellectually she knew that these were nothing compared to the "Galactic Colossus" she'd been shown earlier.

"Hinata, if these start seeming a bit too big we can do this from a command interface instead of on the ground… though Ariel and I could both use the reminder as to the machines we work with every day. You can lean on my shoulder if you need to. The last time we did a tour like this, from a world advanced enough to produce units taller than Armored Command Units, one of the girls was too headstrong to take support when it was offered and ended up fainting onto her friend. It was very awkward. There is no shame in weakness of whatever type. There is only shame in never trying anything to fix or bypass the weakness." Hannah was thinking of a certain Asuka Langley Soryu…

"Thank you too for your consideration, Hannah-sama." Hinata took the black-armoured woman's arm to steady herself, and Hannah nodded to Ariel to continue.

"There are three medium tanks, or an assault bot taking the role and thus icon of a tank. The Thaam has LWH 25-15-10, the MA12 Striker has LWH 17-11-9, and the Mantis has LWH 18-16-14. I suspect the identities are very, very obvious with those dimensions stated." Ariel grinned, and Hinata smiled weakly back. "The Mantis has the unique ability to repair other units or assist in construction, though it is incapable of reclaiming wreckage or environmental objects to obtain mass for construction due to its limited engineering system. It has the same 104 tons as the Aurora, while the Thaam is 108 tons and the Striker 112 tons. The Striker is the most durable and the Mantis the least, so the three are functionally equivalent units."

Hannah took over as they walked between the middle two of the Tier 1 tanks, the vehicles deploying active camouflage as they passed and the next set dropping theirs to become visible. "The four Tier 1 Mobile Anti-Air Guns are also mostly equivalent. There is the Thistle at LWH 19-17-10, the Sky Slammer at 11-8-5, the Archer at 13-8-8, and the Ia-istle 12-10-11, they are all 56 tons. The Sky Slammer is vastly more fragile than the others, but have guided missiles which auto-switch to fire at ground targets as unguided rockets if there are no air targets available, and the Ia-Istle is the slowest by far."

The next row had Hinata wondering where the outrider armor plats the Aurora and Thistle seemed to have had gone for this Aeon design "These are the Tier 1 Mobile Light Artillery units. The Fervor has LWH 16-8-6, the Zthuee has 24-11-5, the Medusa has 12-9-10 and the Lobo has 20-7-8. The Lobo is second fastest after the Medusa, has the longest reload time, but provides some visual coverage of the area it hits with its shell, which splits into five sub-munitions to hit an area. The Medusa has a good splash damage radius and stuns enemies by scrambling their structural fields in a way that forces them to stop moving or firing. Against anything without a structural field, the electromagnetic pulse effect can be quite devastating. The Fervor has the most damage per second, because its munitions, while having a puny splash radius, deal the most damage per shot. The Zthuee combines the splitting shell of the Lobo with a high rate of fire, and it hovers. However the Medusa is the most costly at 96 tons, as the others cost only 72 tons. These correlate fairly well to how useful they are later on in a battle, as Medusas can stun even Experimentals."

"That's it for the Tier 1 land units, Hinata. Any questions?" Hannah asked as they watched the units vanish from view again.

"Um, why are the Seraphim units all asymmetric?"

Hannah shrugged "Seth claimed it was aesthetic choice when we asked him, and the fact that they're advanced enough they can get away with it. The human factions don't do it because we find symmetry more pleasing to the eye. I'm a little surprised though that all the Tier 2 heavy tanks are lumped together in this presentation when it's really obvious they fall in two separate classes. The Rhino has LWH 23-16-8, with its dual lasers being excellent for slaughtering Tier 1 units and generally avoiding overkill. The Pillar is considerably sturdier, though with less damage per second, and has LWH 25-13-11. Both of these are 396 tons in mass and considered equivalent units since the Pillar has a good shell arc that allows it to shoot over obstacles better. The Aeon and Seraphim units are much more powerful and expensive. The Obsidian has LWH 24-22-11, and the Ilshavoh has 20-20-26. They are both 720 tons, the Obsidian is superior in single combat between the two, but most of its durability comes from a personal shield generator and it has inferior range to the Rhino and Pillar. The Ilshavoh has the edge against massed Tier 1 or 2 units, because it avoids the overkill of the Obsidian's high shot damage but low rate of fire, and has slightly better range than the Rhino and Pillar. While it is technically a bot, a walker, the icon it uses is that of a tank, which indicates its role quite well in my opinion."

Ariel continued with a pair of units staged a bit back from the main-line units. "The alternative direct-fire units for the UEF and Cybrans for Tier 2 are the Mongoose, with LWH 19-18-22, while the Hoplite has 30-28-22. Both are 400 tons, have less health than their faction's heavy tank, but outrange the tanks. The Hoplite has the longer range of the two, but is inferior in closer-range combat due to the Mongoose's secondary weapon and superior health. The Hoplite only takes up one transport clamp on an air transport, like a Tier 1 unit, because of how its legs can fold under the body when being transported.

Hannah took over for the next row, which popped into view as they approached "The Tier 2 Amphibious Tanks for the UEF and Cybrans are their most powerful Tier 2 units, though still weaker than the Obsidian or Ilshavoh on a cost-for-cost basis. For the Blaze at LWH 29-18-8 and Yenzyne at 22-14-11, this is not the case. The Blaze and Yenzyne are 440 tons apiece, while the Wagner at LWH 17-14-6 and the Riptide at 20-15-7 are 594 tons each. Only the Wagner does not hover, which allows for sneak attacks across bodies of water covered by radar but not what we call 'sonar'… though it really is a very different technology from the historical tech using that name. Of the hovering ones only the Yenzyne has a non-fixed weapon, but that doesn't matter due to how good hover control in our technology is."

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 **A/N:** I'm using the costs from my torrented version of FA instead of what the wiki says because the wiki and whatever the new balance is seem quite unreasonable on making the Riptide massively more expensive than the Wagner while being basically the same effectiveness. The Wagner is vulnerable to torpedoes, sure, but the Riptide is easy meat for gunships!

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"Um, why is the Yenzyne's turret not visibly attached to the hull?" Hinata pointed at the one whose name was clearly not human-given given it was translated by Hannah's translator as just the sounds instead of actual words. She'd identified it through not just the dimensions but also by the glaringly obvious aesthetics.

"The Seraphim can get away with doing that technologically, and it allows some shots fired at it, due to the inherent uncertainty in sensors thanks to active camouflage and passive stealth, to miss through the gaps in the unit, which is beneficial to survival." Ariel explained as it was her turn, then continued with "Next up, the Tech 2 Mobile Flak units, the Iashavoh is 22-19-20 in Length, Width and Height, Banger is 21-16-14, Ascendant is 19-19-7, and the Sky Boxer is 21-13-9. The Iashavoh and Ascendant hover, while the Sky Boxer has guns that face the rear by default and is the slowest of the four. All of them cost 320 tons, or 160 units of Mass. As you've probably figured out with our earlier slips regarding cost in mass, our technology level allows us to transform matter and use it to create things freely."

"Ariel, that's too rude a shock to drop on the poor girl!" Hannah chastised, seeing Hinata had zoned out with the possibilities. The two waited for the guest to recover enough to nod at their looks, then continued. She was still mute with shock as Hannah showed her the next row of units. "The Tier 2 Tactical Missile Launchers are the Evensong at 25-15-11 LWH, Viper at 21-16-14, Flapjack at 27-12-13, and the Ythisah at 29-20-20. All are 400 tons, but Cybran tactical missiles split into 3 sub-missiles when hit by tactical missile defences that are not Aeon flares, and so still do damage, which makes them superior by far."

Ariel continued with "Then there are the Tier 2 protective units, the Parashield has LWH of 18-18-14 and costs 240 tons. It is itself much studier but has a weaker shield than the Asylum, which has LWH of 20-20-11 when active and costs 288 tons. The Asylum hovers, but the frailty means that crashing air units can maim or destroy it outright with relative ease, which makes them equivalent units. There is no Tier 2 mobile anti-tactical missile option among the standard land unit roster, though they do exist on ships, which we will cover later. The Seraphim do not field a mobile shield generator until Tier 3, while the Cybran Nation are without mobile shields on the standard roster. Instead, the Cybrans get a Mobile Stealth Generator, the Deceiver, which has LWH of 14-11-12 and hide units within a sizable radius from radar detection for much less energy than the shield generators. The stealth even stays active when attaching to a transport, unlike mobile shield generators. However, this stealth is useless against the Omni sensors everyone builds later on in the course of battles."

Hannah took up the next two units as they appeared "There are two Tier 2 units that don't fit within those categories. This is the Sparky Tech 2 Field Engineer, which has the same engineering speed as a normal Tech 2 engineer, but is limited to a few Tier 1 and 2 schematics. It has more health than a normal Tier 2 engineer, but less than a Tier 3 engineer, an onboard radar with a lower radius than a Tier 1 Land Scout, radar jammer, and a weapon that can be relied upon to take out Tier 1 units. Its dimensions are 17-12-13, costing 450 tons. The other unique unit is the Fire Beetle Mobile Bomb, with dimensions 13-15-8 and cost 600 tons. This suicide weapon also only takes up one transport slot on an air transport. Recent improvements since the Seraphim War have resulted in the blast not affecting allied units unless it is an uncontrolled detonation from unit death, and even that is reduced. However we had to sacrifice a lot of explosive power for that. Fortunately it restored it to its old durability."

Currently, the Fire Beetle did 1200 rating points of damage, had 750 HP, and did not affect allies unless it was a death explosion. Even then only a quarter of the standard blast would affect nearby targets, down to a tenth for allies, due to safety measures despite the uncontrolled detonation. Sure, chain reactions among a mob of charging Fire Beetles was still possible, but at least it wasn't the near-uselessness the unit had upon introduction in the Seraphim War era that resulted in the unit almost never being used until it was made dangerously volatile and powerful. A 3000 damage bomb on a 300-HP platform was insane…

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 **A/N:** 300 HP and 3000 damage without affecting allies makes it ridiculously luck-dependent and thus anti-skill. The original Fire Beetle did 1200, affecting allies, and had 750 HP, which was underpowered and absurd (e.g. you can't mass them as there was no death explosion), but at least required lots of skill to use instead of relying on luck with enemy point defence picking the wrong targets, something that 3800s-era turrets would not do.

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Ariel cleared her throat "And now we come to the Tier 3 units, the highest tier aside from so-called "Experimental" units, which are not actually experimental at all, but instead just really powerful and expensive. These Tier 3 units are the most common in massed assaults. The Titan has LWH 28-25-26, though the personal surface shield stands about two meters off each surface, overlapping with the ground below and allowing it to pass unimpeded, but stopping actual projectiles and such from passing." The UEF had learnt that lesson early in the Infinite War when their personal surface shields were bypassed by mines. Sensor technology later increased to the point of making anything that could both stealth and cloak too large to work as a mine without being exceedingly obvious with the pile of dirt it dug up or compacted to make room, but shields of both the surface and bubble varieties continued to extend underground, or underwater in the case of the Bulwark. "Hannah, do you want to talk about the doctrines and your favourite unit?"

"Thank you, Ariel. The Loyalist has LWH 36-24-33, and both cost 960 tons. These two Siege Assault Bots" The Titan had been renamed back to that after the Seraphim War "are critical units in any Tier 3 army. The Titan has a regenerating personal surface shield, giving it more toughness than the Loyalist, but the Loyalist has an EMP death weapon that stuns nearby enemies upon its destruction, and also a tactical missile redirector device that makes it very dangerous against tactical missile launching units without adequate tactical missile defence." There were a few specialized designs and modifications of other units that also built the redirector in. However, due to the standard Coalition anti-ground weapons being usually unguided rockets due to various built-in anti-targeting systems, only the Loyalist had it in the standard Cybran unit roster. On the other hand, both a variant of the Zapper tactical missile defence (TMD) and the short-ranged Redirector TMD Module now had fairly good popularity as factory upgrade options for Cybran factories.

Ah yes, for those unaware, Coalition factories now had upgrade modules and options available to them, depending on factory tier. This often included turning it into a firebase all within one building. Also, there was news about work on an over-shield system that could be fitted to every single unit in the Coalition arsenal, with effectiveness scaling by cost invested, which would be set at the discretion of the particular commanders. The over-shield would be surface or bubble depending on what the unit didn't already have, if it had anything, and would not be cost-effective compared to standard shield generators, mainly existing to provide an additional regenerating pool of health in battle. The veterancy system had also changed since the Seraphim War, since structural field optimization wasn't nearly as easy or independent as it used to be now that things had settled down and the researchers improved their coding.

Ariel continued the briefing as they passed between the two towering walkers and two other units, one an even taller walker and the other a ground-hugging vehicle, came into view. "The Aeon and Seraphim have a single Tier 3 front-line unit each, and they are equivalent units, heavier than the Siege Assault Bots but lighter than the Armored Assault Bots, with intermediate speeds between the two types. The Harbinger Mark IV Heavy Assault Bot has LWH 24-24-38, and projects a shield bubble only large enough to cover itself and any unit that might be short enough to go under it." Technically the current model of Harbinger was an improved variant of the Mk 4, but, well… if they wanted to number all the modifications to the units over time specifically in everyday naming, the current Loyalist would be in the hundreds in model number "Hannah, I think you should cover the doctrines again."

"Sure, but I still get to introduce the Armoured Assault Bots!" Ariel nodded, so the black-haired woman pointed out something very obvious "It has a single weapon on top, with full traverse, which gives it an advantage in flanking battle against the Othuum Siege Tank, since the Seraphim unit cannot bring both of its main DPS weapons, the Aire-au Bolters, into play at the same time on the broadsides. The Harbinger is considerably faster than the Othuum, but is not amphibious unless you want to be instantly detected from across the operational area, because it lacks amphibious passive stealth capability, unlike the Othuum with LWH 43-29-15. Both cost 1680 tons. The Seraphim Siege Tank is almost as slow as the Armored Assault Bots, but is considered the most cost-effective direct-fire Tier 3 land unit in the Coalition arsenal. The only problem is that it is both slower and shorter-ranged than the Harbinger Mk IV, so it can be kited if the Seraphim commander isn't attentive enough. The Seraphim also lack a fast pursuit land unit to chase down fleeing enemies, unlike the UEF or Cybran Siege Assault Bots being available to run down anything that flees a wall of advancing Armoured Assault Bots and Experimentals. Both units are amphibious, though the Harbinger was only made so after the Seraphim War."

It took them a few moments to walk past the length of the Siege Tank parked beside them "The Brick and Percival are the two Armoured Assault Bots, with the Brick more suited to dealing with masses of weaker units and the Percival more suited to sniping tough targets. The Brick has LWH 29-28-50 to the top of the antennae, 29-28-45 otherwise with the antennae folded for transport, while the Percival has LWH of 36-25-40. Both cost 2560 tons, and it is due to gravitational mitigation that they don't sink into the ground when moving." Hannah passed the torch to the brunette as they went to the next row, this time with four units appearing in it before Hinata's eyes.

"These are the Tier 3 Heavy Mobile Artillery units, all in idle posture without their guns raised, with none of them deployed to fire." Ariel said "The Trebuchet has LWH 37-25-13, the Suthanus 36-27-20, the Serenity 41-29-12, and the Demolisher 33-19-15. All four cost 1600 tons. The Demolisher has the best damage per second by a small margin, while the Suthanus sacrifices a little alpha damage and a lot of accuracy for a bigger area of effect. The Trebuchet has the best splash damage by far and high rate of fire, but lowest single-shot damage. Its splash properties make it the best at breaking through layered shields by the damage affecting any shield with line of sight to the impact point, despite not going through to underlying layers. Its rate of fire means it can fire again and wreck the shield emitter before the shields reboot. The Serenity is the only one that can fire on the move without taking a second or two to deploy, and has by far the best single-shot damage. However at 20 seconds it has double the reload of the Demolisher or Suthanus and triple that of the Trebuchet, and despite its good accuracy it has the smallest area of effect. Their normal range, if you don't want to be detected by a third ACU pilot from a pathetically long distance away, would be considered pathetic by pre-Quantum Age standards at only 1800 meters. However, if one is not worried about enemies having Coalition-grade sensors, Tech 3 Mobile Artillery and Tech 2 Artillery Installations can be used as surface-to-orbit weapons, to speak nothing of Tech 3 Artillery Installations or Experimental ones. However when firing into orbit, the kinetic piercing power of the weapon tends to do most of the damage, and firing it is immediately detectable to Coalition sensors from a long, long distance off. On the other hand, I don't think it will be necessarily to use such a function, or any of the 'no stealth concerns' settings on ANY Coalition unit if some conservative forces on your planet react to us making contact with hostility and stupidity.

Hinata grimaced at the thought of anyone from the Elemental Nations being dumb enough to pick a fight with these people. Then Hannah continued next to her. "Speaking of surface to orbit, even Sniper Bots can fire into orbit if they can find suitable terrain or align correctly. Speaking of Sniper Bots… where are they?" There was the sound of a facepalm over her communicator, then some chatter "Well, while we wait for the Sniper Bots to arrive, the unique units are the Athanah Tech 3 Mobile Shield Generator, with double the strength of the Asylum's shield, but costing 1280 tons with LWH of 21-15-23. It hovers, which is important when it comes to protecting the fragile but powerful Seraphim cruisers at sea." She pointed out one hovering unit with obvious Seraphim aesthetics, then an Aeon hovering unit "The Absolver Shield Disruptor is tremendously effective at killing shields, but awesomely impotent against everything else. It has LWH 32-24-9 and costs 840 tons. Finally we have the Spearhead Mobile Missile Platform, at LWH 38-22-19 and 800 tons, it fires three missiles in each volley, with higher power and range than the Flapjack in quick succession, which can help overwhelm enemy tactical missile defences."

"Finally we have the engineering units while we wait on the Sniper Bots. I don't think I need to explain to you which designs are whose, and their sizes are basically irrelevant for recognition purposes given the visual differences of Tier 1 through 3." Ariel said as she gestured over said units, letting Hinata take a bit of time to walk around them.

"Yes, the aesthetics are very obvious…" Hinata agreed. The larger sizes, greater number of tails (Seraphim and Cybran), lobes (Aeon), or claws (UEF) made it very obvious which ones were Tier 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

"Ah, the sniper bots have arrived by transport…" Hannah commented, and Hinata quickly made her way back to them as the units in question came into sight. "The Seraphim Usha-Ah Sniper Bot hovers, so it can go over water, and has two modes, one has a much higher alpha strike and slightly increased range but much lower rate of fire and less DPS. It has a LWH of 32-6-24 and costs the same 1600 tons as the Aeon Sprite Striker, which has one firing mode between the Seraphim's two and does not hover, at LWH 20-15-23. It relies slightly on anti-gravity systems to not sink into the ground, like the Harbinger's ground pressure would have forced, but has superior damage per second to both of the Seraphim modes and has recently been equipped with a much weaker version of the Harbinger's personal bubble shield to improve durability."

"Now, for the Experimentals among the land units. These are not built in land factories, instead they are built by engineers in the field." Ariel stated. "Let us begin with the cheapest, the Monkeylord Spider Bot, LWH of 140-130-120 with a mass of 32000 tons. The Heavy Microwave laser on top is supplemented by two Heavy Electron Bolters and a Meson Rocket Array against ground targets, and a Nanite Missile System against air units. Fortunately the Meson Torpedo of the Wagner has been much improved from its Seraphim War era version, so the greatly improved Meson Torpedo Array fitted to the Monkeylord is now also capable of firing rockets, like the Wagner's. Still, the main weapon of the Monkeylord is by far its Heavy Microwave Laser and its crushing bulk. It is a large enough mass and structural field that it is capable of crushing lesser units and structures just by walking on them, which is very useful when stomping through a base using its speed before it succumbs to damage. The Monkeylord's laser can traverse fully, unlike the other direct fire Experimentals." Through the whole talk they were walking leisurely past the six-legged machine "And yes, everyone in the Coalition knows it's not exactly spider-like, more like an ant, but the old name for the first unit by the name stuck."

"Funny how you get both Cybran ones according to the ordering, when I'm the Cybran here." Hannah noted, then gestured to the disturbingly spindly-looking Seraphim giant they were passing "Ythotha Experimental Assault Bot, 100-120-280. At 40000 tons it is also a Massive unit, so it can crush buildings as it stomps through an enemy base by adjusting its anti-gravity generators and leg structural field properties. The head is armed with an Experimental Phason Pulse Generator, the left arm a Gatling Plasma Cannon, the right arm a Heavy Sinn Unthe Cannon, and the towering shoulder plates carry a pair of Olaris AA Artillery Cannons. We have been informed that the shoulder plates are to contain the energy influence of the Phason Pulse Generator from affecting the targeting and mechanisms of the Olaris flak guns. Even now, the reactor core of the Ythotha still becomes an Othuy, a residual energy signature of some sort that is a Seraphim state secret. We know that the Othuy evaporates through rapid release of its unstable energy in a series of highly destructive beam strikes to nearby targets, but its exact nature is currently still unknown. As far as Coalition scientists have been able to figure out, it is the reactor core of the machine losing stability and containment step-by-step and venting its excess energies. The Othuy is known to have a psionic presence, so it might be at least in part made of sentient psionic energy… given your origins from a Japanese cultural enthusiast colony… I think you'd call it, at least partly, a giant sentient mass of chakra?"

Hinata nodded, hiding how she suddenly had a very horrible thought related to how Naruto held the Nine-Tails contained. Could these "Ythothas" be similar at some level?

"Galactic Colossus Experimental Assault Bot, LWH of 50-80-200, 45000 tons and Massive. It is only armed with a single Phason Laser in the head and two Tractor Claws which can grab any non-Experimental unit other than Command Units from up to 800 meters away and instantly destroy them on contact. The Fire Beetle has, since the late days of the Seraphim War, been programmed to detonate just before this, and the Medusa will set off its EMP warheads just before death. The Loyalist death EMP effect will also stop the GC cold for a brief time. It is by far the toughest unit in the Coalition arsenal besides the much more expensive Megalith, but will not defeat a Megalith or Ythotha in one on one battle due to relatively low damage per second. Like the Ythotha it is only capable of firing in the forward arc and is slow to turn around, but unlike the Ythotha it has absolutely no auxiliary anti-air weapons or any bonus capabilities."

"Fatboy Mobile Factory, LWH of 170-150-50 with the guns pointed out toward the sides, 49200 tons. It is absurdly fragile compared to the other Experimentals even after post-Seraphim War rework and upgrade efforts, and is still stuck at its old speed, slower than even Armored Assault Bots, which are actually slower than the previous three Experimentals." Those upgrades had pushed it up from 12500 HP and 20000 shields to 15000 HP and 22000 shields by the latest rating scales, for the same rather annoyingly expensive cost. "The gunnery arcs have also been improved so that the Fatboy can now fire all four Triple Gauss Cannons at the same target in narrow forward and rear arcs, though because the weapon stealth systems aren't getting any better all that fast due to various obstacles in research, the range is still only 100 map grids… two short kilometers, ugh. It's enough to outrange all other direct-fire Experimental units though since their weapons stealth systems are no better, and the auxiliary weapons, shield dome and factory ability are still effective enough to make it a great investment as a mobile firebase, great for doing a fairly quick and easily defensible firebase creep toward the enemy. The onboard factory module can build all UEF land factory units while moving."

"Megalith Experimental Mega Bot, 175-180-190 to the tops of the antennae, costing 67500 tons. It can lay 'eggs' and construct them to build Trebuchets, Bricks, Bangers and Tier 3 Engineers, allowing it to quickly set up a firebase. It can build Bricks underwater to support it against masses of weaker units as it breaches a beachhead, and is tall enough that most continental shelves and coastal regions are reasonably easy to navigate with the Proton Cannons still sticking out of the water. It is faster in water due to its immense size and the energy expenditure of its reactors and systems that keep it from sinking into the ground under its own weight on land. It should be considered a naval unit that can get on land, like the Salem-class destroyer. The torpedo armament is excellent, the anti-torpedoes strong, and the main guns overwhelmingly powerful, but anti-aircraft capability is quite mediocre and the build options are limited compared to, say, the Fatboy."

"Speaking of the Salem-class, Hinata-chan, would you like to ride on the one amphibious naval unit that the Coalition has? Well, other than the Megalith, of course…" Hannah asked, smiling, as with a gesture she commanded the Salem class that had snuck up on them with no more signs than a vague breeze of displaced air and flattened grass to turn off its active camouflage. "Or would you prefer to see things from the air?" With another gesture to her other side, a Wailer Heavy Gunship dropped its active camouflage, having landed with similarly nothing more than a gentle breeze to indicate its displacement. "That will decide what class of unit we go see next."

"Um, the ship please!" It was a great deal more familiar to Hinata than the concepts of aerial combat. Hopefully she wouldn't embarrass herself and her Clan too badly when the time came for that… _Must not faint, must not faint… wait, if I didn't faint on seeing that… Ythotha thing, I should be fine! Wow…That made me feel so much better, ha… HAHA… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… I think I've cracked already under the shock._ She showed no signs of this, as per her training as heiress before her father gave up on her.

"Alright then… Naval unit sizes will be listed in Length-Width-Height above water-Draft below water, abbreviated as LWHD, when surfaced, and the numbers get more approximate the bigger the ship is, due to waves and other effects." Hannah said as she led them over to the walking destroyer, then frowned at the rather considerable space between the bottom of the hull and the ground, not to mention the deck and such. "Um, Ariel—?"

The Aeon woman interrupted her question with "I'm guessing you have no idea how to board one of these things either?"

"Yes." There was an awkward silence "Xav, you're more experienced than I am, any tips here?"

"You're the premiere Cybran ACU pilot of your generation, Hannah, and you didn't learn this?" He sounded incredulous. They hadn't had this problem the last time they did a tour since they'd paraded the units past the shoreline, instead of moving among them.

Hannah snorted at his comment. "You've been piloting for three hundred years, Xav, I've been piloting for less than ten." She started in 3840 at age eighteen, and was the young prodigy involved in some of the important operations in the final stage of the Infinite War, fighting over information and technology related to Black Sun. "You probably know more about the specifics of Cybran units than I do." She turned to address Hinata visibly "As you can tell, Hinata, when you are genetically supposed to have lifespan estimates range upward from a bottom line of a thousand years, age differences mean little in relationships so long as both parties are adults. He's more than ten times my age, but we hit it off right away when we met during the Seraphim War and later experiences convinced me to propose to him…" There was also a political element, a very large political element. "I feel almost offended at the fact that you are turning green from the fact that he's over ten times my age." She showed Hinata her husband's hologram, and Fran waved cheerily at her.

Hinata bowed her head in shame, having imagined being married off politically to a decrepit old man. "Sorry!" She said to the man who still looked to be in his youth, with no marks of age.

Hannah chuckled as she turned the hologram off "Bah, it's fine, don't worry too much about it. I'll introduce him later, don't worry, he doesn't even act old, except sometimes when he shows symptoms of PTSD, but that's another story."

"Alright, since you don't want to fly her up with your armour, I've gotten the Salem to deploy ladders and doors, make your way through the unit to the bridge please." Coalition units all had internal space for people, because who knew what a special operations team might need to hitch a ride on? Or, on a darker note, who knew what means civilians would need to be evacuated by?

The three climbed onboard, and the ship began walking toward the sea as they entered it and began making their way to the bridge by… stairs, since it wasn't normally provisioned or built with habitation in mind.

"The smallest and weakest Coalition naval unit built at a naval factory is the Shard Attack Boat, with LWHD of 28-10-7-2 and costing 240 tons. It is only capable of anti-aircraft fire and does nothing else, except being extremely fast. It lacks even the radar to use its range optimally." Ariel pointed to the little boat that shimmered into view as they reached the bridge and the Salem reached the sea. Hinata had not felt the destroyer's movements nearly strongly enough to account for the speed at which they were approaching the beach… but said nothing due to shyness and assuming that if these people had control over gravity… then not feeling the motions of the walking ship was surely child's play to them.

Then a set of four units shimmered into sight from what had been tranquil ocean as the Salem entered the water and folded its legs against the hull. Ariel introduced them with "The Tier 1 naval superiority units are Attack Submarines, which you see surfaced right now. The Silver-class has LWHD of 44-10-4.5-4, the Sou-istle 45-12-4.5-4, the Tigershark 38-9-8-4 to the top of the antennae, and the Sylph 44-11-5-3.5. The Sylph lacks a deck gun, while the Sou-istle has a torpedo defence system but is by far the most fragile. The Silver has more torpedoes in one salvo, which help it bypass torpedo defence somewhat, while the Tigershark's higher health and better deck gun makes it contest the position of best Tier 1 Submarine with the Silver. Each of the four costs 800 tons." Due to the upgrades and such to the design through its long, many-generational history, the Cybran attack sub had been symbolically renamed from Sliver to Silver after the Seraphim War.

* * *

A/N: Translation: I ALWAYS thought it was Silver, so I'm too lazy to change to "Sliver".

* * *

"Um, the waves seem to be passing right through them?" Hinata noted.

"Our wave modulation methods are good enough to make them not very obvious, but what we call radar and sonar systems in honour of the original sensor systems can still pick up the disturbances and energy signatures from quite a distance out." Hannah explained. "The amount of technology we put into detection and counter-detection is quite frankly somewhat insane, reducing battles to ranges that even our ancestors almost two thousand years ago had already reached or surpassed." She looked out toward the units they were now stopping in front of "These are the four frigates, in order of cost. All have very deep draft for their displacement and dimensions to maintain stability, and to reduce radar signature since if you are in the water your wave generators will need to do a lot of work anyhow. The Trident at 540 tons is 98-21-20-7, which is an insanely deep draft for its displacement and dimensions even considering the hull shape. The Thunderhead at 560 tons is 87-12-25-4. The Beacon at 580 tons is 89-29-18-6. The Hau-esel at 600 tons is 91-31-25-5. All of them have a secondary anti-air weapon except the Beacon, which has rather slow-firing anti-torpedoes instead."

Hannah looked at Hinata for a moment, prompting the girl to identify the ship in question based on the numbers she was given and the obvious Seraphim aesthetics "So the Beacon is the Aeon Illuminate design, and the Thunderhead is the UEF design, yes?"

Hannah smiled encouragingly "Correct! The Trident has the best damage per second among the four, while the Thunderhead has a radar jammer which makes it viable even late in a battle. The Beacon has to turn broadside to the enemy, because of its gun arrangement not just being a forward anti-surface weapon, which is a disadvantage as it presents a larger target, and is the most fragile, while having the second best DPS. All four carry radar and sonar, and I repeat that they must not be confused with the devices originally named as such, which may possibly exist in your world. They are sometimes used as picket ships even late in a battle, but only the Thunderhead is indispensable." She mentally sent out the command to move the Salem to the next row of units. "Technically we also have Tier 1 and 2 amphibious landing ships, but they are rarely used and not considered standard roster despite most pilots keeping at least one of the two choices on their schematics list to give themselves more options, despite the things taking up some of the limited number of schematic slots they can bring to battle."

* * *

A/N: Because the lack of transport ships in-game was completely ridiculous. Being a niche unit is no reason to be excluded from standard schematics given how important rushing a coast with heavy AA can be.

* * *

Ariel took her turn speaking as the next row, of only three ships, shimmered into sight "The main-line naval units of Tier 2 are the destroyers, which is ironic because historically, cruisers were a larger, tougher, and generally better class of ship than destroyers, but currently what we call cruisers are almost purely dedicated to anti-aircraft duty. All the destroyers cost 4500 tons and move at the same speed. The Salem class destroyers have LWHD of 94-33-33-9. We are currently on one, hence only the other three destroyers parked over there. The Exodus class has LWHD of 110-37-28-7, the Valiant is 117-20-34-5, and the Uashavoh 111-39-29-5. Of the four, the Salem and Exodus have the range advantage, but since their guns are forward of their superstructures, they cannot conduct a stern chase to kite the other destroyers quite as trivially as one might think due to all ships having slightly less top reverse speed than top forward speed. Kiting is the use of better range to make the enemy chase you and hurt them while they cannot hurt you. The Valiant and Uashavoh only have three-quarters the range of the others and must turn broadside for full DPS due to having both fore and aft guns, but the Valiant has the best gun DPS by a large margin, and the Uashavoh can dive to avoid unfavourable surface engagements. The torpedo power of the Uashavoh and its ability to dive make it satisfy the Tier 2 Sub Hunter role for the Seraphim very well. However, it is slower when submerged due to stealth needs, and an Exodus has far better anti-submarine and anti-surface power due to having powerful depth charges in addition to torpedoes. Unusually, the Exodus actually beats out the UEF Valiant in health among the destroyers, particularly odd since the Valiant's weak torpedo and anti-torpedo system are already more than enough to make it lose handily to the Exodus without extreme and thus inefficient micromanagement. I don't need to explain how useful the Salem's amphibious ability is, despite it being by far the frailest destroyer and being cost-ineffective compared to Tier 3 land units. The huge range, only outranged by artillery installations and Tier 3 mobile artillery, makes for a decent mobile firebase when massed with appropriate support, though it is mind-numbingly slow on land at only 1.5 grids per second, or 30 meters per second." Ariel was somewhat envious of that capability.

Hannah spoke next as per her turn "The Tier 2 Cruisers are our naval anti-aircraft and sensory solution, all costing 4000 tons and moving slightly slower than the four destroyers. All four have radar and sonar that allow destroyers and cruisers alike to fire well beyond visual range, and we mean visual relative to active camouflage. They also carry tactical missile defence weapons. The Governor Class has LWHD 114-16-37-6, the Infinity Class has 118-38-34-11, the Siren Class 114-42-36-11, and the Ithalua 120-43-25-6. The Siren is the only Cruiser that matches its Destroyer counterpart in surface firepower, in fact it greatly exceeds the Salem if the Nanodart Launcher auto-switches to anti-surface fire due to lack of aerial targets… though the system is only effective at fairly close range due to the unguided rockets it spews against ground targets. It also has a landing pad on the back that allows quick refuelling and repair of patrolling air units, an invaluable asset. The Infinity is the sturdiest and has the best anti-air missiles, and its tactical missile defence flare system cannot be overwhelmed by multiple simultaneous launches unlike the others, but the tactical missile protection area is puny and the deck gun is almost as weak as the Governor's. The Governor has slightly worse anti-air than the Salem and vastly worse anti-surface ability, but gets to fire volleys of tactical missiles at distant targets. The Ithalua fires a constant stream of missiles, more powerful and with higher DPS than the Governor, and has the highest anti-air DPS, particularly good against gunship swarms with its flak batteries, but the shots do not track targets and the muzzle velocity reduces DPS against the fastest air units. The Ithalua also has less anti-aircraft range than the others, and is the most fragile cruiser by far, while completely lacking anti-surface capability."

Ariel rolled her eyes at Hannah's smug belief that her faction fielded the best cruiser design, by dint of its flexibility "These two classes dominated Tier 2 naval combat during the Infinite War, back then the icon for destroyers was that of a surface ship torpedo unit. More recently, Tier 2 Sub Hunters have been fielded, and also two Tier 2 support ships, so the destroyer icon has changed to Tier 2 direct-fire when displayed on screens. The three Tier 2 Sub Hunters are the UEF Tier 2 Torpedo Boat, the Cooper, of 1800 tons and LWHD 39-9-11.5-3.5, the Tier 2 Sub Hunter Barracuda, is 2200 tons with LWHD 59-12-6-7, and the Vesper at the same mass and 56-20-7-6. The Cooper is the only one that can't submerge, though it has by far the best anti-torpedoes. Its sonar has been upgraded since its introduction so that it can use its torpedoes to the maximum range in theory, like the others, without a cruiser or frigate around for sonar coverage. The Vesper is the toughest, but has the weakest torpedoes. The Barracuda has the strongest torpedoes, stealth, the weakest anti-torpedoes, and the lowest durability. Speaking of stealth…"

The brunette looked over at the black-haired woman next to her, and facepalmed, because Hannah was busy taking a drink instead of resuming the briefing as they stopped in front of two unique units. It seemed Hannah wanted to introduce the battleships… "There are two unique Tier 2 units, both defensive in nature. The Mermaid Stealth Boat projects a stealth field out to 800 meters radius, far superior to the Deceiver's mere 360 meters, and is very fast, so it can keep up with any non-aerial units sent out over or through water that it is sent to escort. It also has an effective anti-torpedo system to support the fleet or submerged land units with. It costs 1200 tons and has LWHD 48-16-15-5.5. The Bulwark Shield Boat projects a flattened shield bubble, like that found on the Continental, able to protect the fleet from gunships that can get under the larger, most powerful, stationary shield bubbles. It also shields against everything else, so while the shield is not all that powerful it is still quite useful for the UEF, since the Parashield cannot cross water. It costs 2080 tons and has LWHD 54-19-17-4. The Bulwark is much less durable than the Mermaid and lacks any defensive or weapons systems, but matches the Mermaid in speed." She pulled out her bottle of tea, since their suits could synthesize water there was no other reason to bring a bottle except to get a more specialized drink.

Seeing Ariel imitating her by finishing chatter with a drink, Hannah smiled at her friend's ceding of the most glamorous Tier 3 ships "So that's it for the Tier 2 naval units, at least, the factory-built ones since engineers can built turrets on water, except artillery emplacements and missile launchers." The ability to build point defence turrets on water was a big change after the Seraphim War, but artillery on water was still a work in progress due to size versus mass and ensuing stability issues. "The main Tier 3 warship is the Battleship, whose icon has changed except for the Omen-class since the Seraphim War from a Tier 3 direct-fire surface ship to what they actually work as, which is artillery duty. All four of the standard Tier 3 battleships cost 22500 tons, have two tactical missile defences, and heavy direct-fire weaponry with enough range to work as artillery. The UEF Summit Class measures LWHD 272-70-70-15 with the secondary weapons sticking out to the sides, 60m if they're folded in. The Cybran Galaxy Class measures 250-79-60-12 with the Zappers sticking out to the side, 66m width if they're folded in. The Omen Class is 270-77-60-18, though unlike the others, nothing sticks out to the sides, and yes, we are well aware that the underwater hull volume seems obscene for such a small mass. The Hauthuum measures 276-75-50-9, and the parts that stick out at the sides are very minor, so folding them in line makes little difference."

Seeing that Ariel seemed uninterested in explaining the differences, Hannah continued "Of the four, the Summit has the most health and range, but is the slowest, being a sixth slower than the Galaxy and Hauthuum's sixty meters per second top speeds. The Omen is one fifth faster than those two at 72 meters per second, and has the highest overall damage per second output, but has the shortest range by a good margin. Unlike the other battleships, the Omen class icon has not been changed and remains that of a direct fire Tier 3 surface ship, reflecting the fact that its main use is naval superiority, with Experimentals, Torrents, air units, and/or amphibious units forcing their way inland. Since the Seraphim War, the Omen class has changed to move the tactical missile defences to fore and aft positions, with a pair of anti-torpedo mounts installed on the old flank positions and damage per shot improved slightly to match the Exodus class at 1050, raising its damage per second to 175 per turret, on a reload extended to 6 seconds, instead of 1000 per 5.9 seconds. This improved its overall abilities to be equal to the other factions' equally costly battleships. The Galaxy class and Hauthuum have equal gun DPS, but the Galaxy has fairly decent torpedoes. We should point out that all the battleships' secondary weapons except the Omen class have been improved since the Seraphim War to be flak weapons instead of simple autocannons. The Hauthuum also acts as the Seraphim mobile Strategic Missile Launcher. Ariel, your turn on the subject of strategic missiles and associated submarines…"

The brunette nodded and put away her bottle "The yields of our strategic missiles are considerable. Against a civilization with no structural fields, they can level large cities spanning many dozens of kilometers with trivial ease, and missiles from silo buildings are even more powerful. We rely on specialized strategic missile defence structures and, in more recent times, a few very specialized, truly experimental units to counter them, though those are not standard roster units, at all. The Strategic Missile Submarines are equipped with decent tactical missile fabrication and launching systems, though they're only a third as powerful as a standard Tier 2 installation's tactical missiles, The UEF Ace at 10000 tons has LWHD of 72-24-5-15, and the Silencer of the same mass is 73-21-10-14. The Plan B is 12000 tons, with LWHD of 77-37-8-6. The Plan B is the only one armed with a rather powerful torpedo battery. The Ace can store three strategic missiles, and is more durable than the Silencer, which can store four. The Plan B can store five like the Hauthuum, due to its greater bulk. The Plan B also comes with a better tactical missile system, since the Cybrans have no other tactical missile launchers at sea"

With respect to strategic missiles, structural integrity fields were one of the greatest inventions of mankind. Without structural fields, it would have been very much impossible for strategic missile warheads from a submarine to do 25000 damage throughout the inner splash radius of 30 "grids" (20 meters on a side) tapering off to 500 damage by 40 grids and 0 by 50 grids, while a silo would do 70000 damage in the middle of the inner radius of 50 grids, tapering down steadily, at the border it started dropping steeply, down to 500 by 60 and 0 by 70. That was because the earliest a containment field—a technology derived from structural fields—could be erected to bounce the blast back toward ground zero—with most of the energy venting upward—was at a particular pressure level. The process resulted in the damage dealt within the blast radius being twofold, tapering off to a common level near the border of the inner blast before being bounced back and increasing as it converged, though much of it vented upward. Incidentally, structural integrity field technology also meant Coalition spacecraft could dive quite deep into gas giants without sustaining any damage whatsoever, not that they normally would, thanks to widespread hover technology…

* * *

 **A/N:** I rebalanced strategic weapons because the numbers were ridiculous otherwise, with 30 inner splash radius on both missile types, but 25K vs 70K in the inner splash and 500 in the outer splash. How would that even be possible?

The Ace fires missiles 13m long by in-game scale relative to a 10m-tall wall section, while the 9m Cybran missile is at least REASONABLE for the Plan B, and the 12m missile for the Silencer is consistent with hull depth. The hull of the Ace in-game is 70-20-5-9 (Silencer 71-19-9-12, Plan B 77-37-8-6) in length, width, height above water, and draft below water, so at MOST that's 1400x9 = 12600 tons of water displaced… and it's NOT just a big box hull either, in fact it takes up less than a third (eyeballed) of the outlined volume. So I cut the cost of the submarines in half, to make it less gimmicky and ineffective as a unit and make more sense in terms of physics, and also made the Ace wider and deeper as its shape more or less requires.

The Seraphim missile at over 20 meters long is also obscenely huge for the port it comes out of (I'll make it come out from the main superstructure's gap to make some sense) Other than Quantum Storage Spaces as found on Carriers (hence how they can hold many, many aircraft), I had no other solution to the absurd bullshit than the subs being direly undersized besides making the undersized ones (Ace, Silencer) bigger or moving the launcher (Hauthuum)

Only by invoking containment tech can I restrict the splash of weapons into small areas. Sorry about my previous statement in an A/N about the Ambassador's splash damage radius being absurdly small, it will stay the in-game radius instead of being doubled, thanks to containment field tech.

* * *

"It is due to the danger of interception that the strategic missiles have a very limited range of only about twenty kilometers from our submarines. In areas with no risk of interception they can fly on ballistic trajectories across a typical super-Earth planet, with ranges well over fifty thousand kilometers depending on conditions, or shoot out of the planet's gravity well." Ariel finished explaining to a rather terrified Hinata.

"I don't think we'll use any of those weapons during our diplomatic mission, Ariel… so scaring her with that information was rather mean and meaningless." Hannah scolded. "If you're alright with continuing, Hinata-chan, the last ship type common to several factions is aircraft carriers, which basically serve as mobile water-borne air factories that cannot build engineers. They are useful for repairing and refuelling aircraft far from a base, although not so much for the Cybrans thanks to the Siren, and can mostly replace air factories late in a battle thanks to their much faster build rates. They store their aircraft in Quantum Storage Spaces, colloquially referred to as 'Hammer Space', which allow them to hold more aircraft than their physical size would permit. The three Tier 3 carriers are the Command class, the Keefer class, and the Iavish. The UEF aircraft carrier is an Experimental, so it's not parked here."

* * *

 **A/N:** The cost of carriers, on 2 tons per 1 mass, makes then displace (without aid of ballast tanks) only about 8000 tons of water, except the Atlantis, which costs a measly 24000 tons in-game for such a gigantic ship and obviously huge displacement when surfaced. This is patently ridiculous, so I am vastly improving combative ability of carriers to justify tripling cost to somewhere within the realm of sanity. And even then, given those hull shapes, sizes and volumes, the carriers should really displace something on the order of 10 times that amount of water (so about 160K tons per standard carrier… or 20 tons per mass in-game). To have Armored Assault Bots weigh into the tens of thousands of tons was clearly ludicrous, so… I'm compromising by grossly increasing their costs, and improving effectiveness too. Atlantis won't be changed too much, only double the mass… still absurdly low for its idle displacement according to vision.

* * *

Hannah gestured to her faction's carrier first "The Command class is the most capable of fitting in narrow but deep channels of water, as it is the smallest at 287-87-67-40 not counting antennae, and at 26400 tons is the most expensive now. I realize that sounds insanely light given the draft but the hull shape helps make it less stupid. Passive stability was needed in terms of having ballast tanks, and the sheer size is to give space for our aircraft to pick up speed after exit from storage, before leaving the carrier either by front or back. They land vertically and are entered into storage by the ribs you see on top, or go in either end. Since the Seraphim War, we have worked to overcome the design's limitations, which are a capacity of 50 aircraft and an exit width of 35 meters. We have managed to improve the all-round utility of the ship by modifications allowing disgorging aircraft through the three storage space and air staging access pads on top, which are those six things that look like vents that you see." It was easier to put things into a storage space, it was harder to pluck a specific thing out. There used to be eight of the panels, but the ship had been shortened…

"Thanks to that, the Command class is now the only carrier capable of building, holding and disembarking transports… which can be loaded with units, though those count toward the unit limit onboard. Today, the Command Class remains more than competitive by having a torpedo armament and having the best direct-fire surface weaponry." Mounting two modified Salem-class turrets on the forward screening prongs flanking the exit had gone well enough, and replacing the old AA autocannons with flak turrets had also been done. "The launch acceleration run of aircraft has been compromised slightly and the ship shortened since the Seraphim War to free up mass for these weapons and the reactors powering them." though they still needed to be able to summon Dragonfly Tier 2 Air Transports. "The ship is capable of at least maiming any type of target except strategic missiles. Oh, and thanks to the topside disembarking ability, it can also hold land units on an equal basis as air units, presuming they are deposited in by transports or drive in through the front or rear if they hover, though it cannot hold Command Units of any type." Left unsaid was how, since no Cybran unit hovered, that ability was more useful with allies, unless one wanted to broadcast their amphibious landing to sensors for many dozens of kilometers. "The result is that the Cybran Nation is the only faction to have a Tier 3 Naval Transport, more or less, in its standard day-to-day roster, since this can disembark well enough into shallow water near beachheads. However it is also by far the most fragile of the carriers."

"The other two carriers have a superior capacity of 60 aircraft, while the UEF Atlantis can hold an astounding 150." Ariel cut Hannah off before she could extoll the Cybran carrier's virtues too much further. The mishmash units had resulted from a post-Seraphim War improvement to the carriers, using up some of their immense reserve buoyancy and increasing price greatly in exchange for better power in general. They had been designed by the four referred to by the general populace as either the Elite Four or the Four Prodigies. Unfortunately, the youngest among them had a nasty tendency to be a bit too proud of how much they'd been able to power up what was once considered the worst of the Coalition carriers "The Keefer at LWHD of 336-140-70-15 and 24000 tons has the anti-aircraft firepower of the Infinity Class now, and has been fitted with two Will-O-Wisp tactical missile defences fore and aft, which are basically impossible to overwhelm. Combined with the Omen class, this makes firing tactical missiles at an Aeon Tier 3 fleet basically completely pointless, overcoming the weakness of the flare system's grossly inferior range compared to the other systems. It also manufactures aircraft faster than the Command class now due to upgrades. The Keefer has also received anti-surface weaponry in the form of an Oblivion Cannon ahead of its island structure, which makes it equal in firepower to the Exodus and one-third that of the Omen. This is effective for clearing away enemy anti-aircraft units, particularly hovering flak units or cruisers. The planes are launched from storage from both sides unless specifically ordered, so they disgorge faster than the Command class which only spews them from the front normally, and land through the top, through the open gap running the length of the ship. Hannah, you do the Iavish, I've talked enough for now…"

"Alright then… The Iavish is the only carrier to have a tactical missile launcher, a pretty good one at that. Due to less design changes since the Seraphim War compared to the other two, it has gone from most expensive to cheapest, at only 21600 tons, with LWHD 359-113-95-12. It manufactures aircraft at the same rate as the modern Keefer, has a considerable anti-aircraft armament and tactical missile defence—which was added after the war—but has no surface or submarine weapons other than the missiles. It also disgorges aircraft faster than the Keefer, with more health and an anti-torpedo system." The Cybran looked over at the Aeon woman "Should I continue?"

Ariel shrugged "If you like."

"There are three unique Tier 3 naval units on the standard roster, such as the Seraphim Sub Hunter. The Yathsou has LWHD of 67-27-15-7 and costs 6000 tons. It is considered extremely cost effective due to its effective anti-aircraft and torpedo batteries, while being cheap enough to mass-produce. Its only weaknesses are hovering anti-surface units when it is surfaced, and the Solace." Solaces targeting a Seraphim fleet by attack-move would automatically assign one to each Ithalua, then two to each Yathsou to wipe out the main Seraphim AA firepower in the first attack run or two. Though the Losaare AA autocannon had been improved since the Seraphim War, the new model, which was actually fast enough to be effective enough when fired from the ground against evading Tier 3 air units, was simply unable to fit as much anti-air DPS onto the Yathsou. However for effectiveness against air units, and to maintain a hefty HP pool despite the power creep that occurred after the Seraphim War's lessons, the compromise that was the current Yathsou was accepted.

* * *

 **A/N:** In-game Yathsou is 57-23-13-6, which given its hull form does NOT displace 6000 tons. Scaling up 1/6 in every dimension brings it into a sane displacement vs mass for passive buoyancy on the surface. I'm nerfing down the AA battery by three-eighths (240 DPS from 2 salvos of 2 60-damage shots per second to 150 from 3 50-damage single shots per second) and the torpedoes slightly (from 335 per torpedo and 335 DPS to 300, still enough to kill a Vesper in 2 salvos unless it's running away and gets lucky with the 2nd anti-torpedo discharge) to compensate for the hugely increased costs of aircraft carriers (e.g. the Atlantis which it is super effective against) and strategic missile submarines. It is still powerful enough to massacre cheaper units like the Tier 2s, while able to swarm superior units by dint of cheapness.

Oh, and the Torrent at 9900 Mass is grossly cost-ineffective compared to two Ithalua or even two Iavish in-game, it's only it being the only Aeon tactical missile launcher at sea other than the even less cost-effective Silencer that makes it useful. I'm buffing it quite a bit due to the cheapening of the Silencer…

* * *

"Another unique naval unit is the Aeon Torrent Mk 2, a dedicated Tier 3 Missile Ship. It fires volleys of tactical missiles which are individually weaker than a Strategic Missile Submarine's tactical missiles. However it does so in volleys of 12 every 20 seconds, firing four per volley from each of its three Serpentine Missile Racks, which is sufficient power to punch through enemy shields well enough, as long as they don't have two Tier 3 generators defending each other. This missile system actually totals more DPS on paper than most of the battleships. However, the main addition to the Mk 2 that made it worthy of the name and the hideous cost and frailty that plagues it and the original is the incorporation of the ability to build and launch full-powered silo-level tactical missiles from the ship. It can have at most eight stored, firing every 10 seconds at most, though the default is to mix one in with each volley of the weaker missiles from the racks to double the DPS, or manual launch. It costs 19800 tons and has LWHD of 242-60-52-15." Hannah finished, turning to her friend "Ariel, feeling better now?"

"Yeah, just felt like sneezing earlier, must have been some virus Hinata brought on her that my system is busy purging. Guess your world's immune systems aren't as bad as isolation usually makes, Hinata! That's great, it means hopefully not too much trouble meeting the Coalition at large. Now, the Neptune-class Tier 3 Battle Cruiser at 15000 tons has LWHD 200-50-70-15, it is highly effective against naval surface units and thus shares the direct-fire Tier 3 surface ship icon with the Omen now. It cannot defeat any battleship one on one, but it is much cheaper and much faster than the Summit, so it can almost keep up with a Tier 2 fleet and provide valuable fire support. That's it for the Tier 3 units. On to the naval Experimentals then…"

They waited until they pulled alongside what looked not unlike like a towering blue-grey cliff "This is the UEF Atlantis Submersible Aircraft Carrier, 48000 tons with LWHD 425-70-70-40, not counting antennae. The current model has an extremely powerful torpedo battery, a sturdy shield dome, a very large HP pool, and when surfaced has excellent surface-to-air missiles. It can build and hold up to 150 aircraft, excluding transports, and rapidly disgorge them, justifying the great expense."

Ariel continued as the huge ship next to them submerged itself, allowing the Salem to pass over it to what looked practically like a green and white hill—except normal hills didn't have a gigantic weapon sticking out on top "The Aeon Tempest Experimental Battleship, 56000 tons, 323-298-140-75 when fully surfaced, due to the portion of rear hull slid under the main hull to expose the ship-building section. It can build, when stopped, all Aeon Tier 1 and 2 ships, and Tier 3 engineers. It can emerge fully to expose the auxiliary weapons on the pontoons, partly submerge to leave only the top cannon exposed to reduce artillery and tactical missile damage unless they score a direct hit, or fully submerge to escape anti-surface fire. The torpedoes are powerful, and the ship is worth its cost as a heavy naval superiority unit and mobile factory."

Ariel turned toward the girl who they hoped would serve as an ambassador of sorts and smiled. "That concludes the briefing on the standard Coalition naval units. Shall we discuss the air units now, or shall we take a breather and get some food? I believe your gut should have settled from any potential nausea or discomfort from vaccination and such by now."

Hinata fell back on one of her basic decision-making processes, predated only by "What would Mother do?" In other words, she resorted to "What would Naruto do?"

…

…OTHER than be exceedingly horrified at the casual way these women spoke about committing massive amounts of murder beyond even Uchiha Madara's level.

…

…Uh…

…

…Hmm…

…Well, even given a few minutes of contemplation, Hinata didn't think she had words that could adequately describe how excited Naruto would be at being shown machines that could actually fly.

"May we see the air units first?" _Oh, I'm too late, we're already moving…_ she noticed once she unclogged her brain from trying (too hard) to find words to vaguely describe Naruto's exuberance should he be confronted with flying vehicles.

While she was stuck on thinking, the two women had already decided that lunch should come first. "Ah, sorry Hinata, I've already instructed the Salem to bring us back to the research facility so that we can get some food." Ariel said, grinning sheepishly "In the meantime we can move the ground units off the island and park our air units on the ground, in formation, except the CZAR which doesn't land."

* * *

"Um, what is the name of this dish?" Hinata did not recognize the particular fish, though she had a good inkling as to how to use the particular eating implements, thanks to her observations.

"I believe it's a type of fish originally from the habitable world of the 56 Aurigae system." Hannah answered after informing Hinata of the dish name from the cafeteria menu… while running a search on the Cybran Network on where the fish came from. Convergent evolution based on the physical laws of reality was a remarkable thing in terms of similar appearances and characteristics. She speared a chunk on her fork and slid it into her mouth in the fork-sideways fashion that anyone smart enough to do so ate by. There was no point in risking being stabbed in the back of the mouth after all.

"Nice etiquette and observational training, to notice such a thing." Ariel observed as Hinata imitated Hannah's eating.

"Thank you." Hinata bowed her head in acknowledgement. "This flavour is…"

Hannah thought for a moment before saying "Not salted enough, huh? It doesn't go all that well with rice or other grains when it's this low in salt, I forgot to order it spiced and salted to Asian standards, sorry."

"No, no, it's good, just different, that's all."

Ariel put something in front of the girl. "Salt shaker if you want it, Western cuisine is more individualistic in terms of tastes, therefore much of the seasoning is done by the individual to one's particular tastes."

* * *

 **A/N:** In-game all the transports, even those with obvious landing legs, hover tens of meters off the ground. The Mirage's hover height is also over 10m. What the hell? Accuracy will be a bit off for the thicknesses of those, and the hull clearances too…

* * *

"Alright, then, air units… we'll do this from the ground I suppose, since we're having them all landed instead of flying in formation past a hovering gunship we can watch from." Hannah grinned as they walked out of the research center after lunch. "We have the Tier 1 Air Scouts, which only have visual sensors by current standards. They have very low health, are the fastest Tier 1 air unit, and each cost 80 tons. The UEF Hummingbird, Cybran Flying Eyes, Aeon Mirage, and Seraphim Sele-istle are the four options. The Sele-istle is the best as it is hardest to hit for Tier 1 anti-aircraft fire due to its shape, and has a post-destruction data relay capacity, so it's the best of the four. The LWH data are, in order… ah, as you can see, our aircraft always have space between their hulls or wings and the ground for landing gear that's not included in normal observed and cited LWH… uh, I guess Length, Width, Hull Height and Ground Clearance when landed for LWHC then?" She looked over at Ariel, who nodded "There will be exceptions though later… anyhow, for the four T1 Air Scouts we have LWHC being Hummingbird 9.5-16-4-2, Flying Eyes 14-16-5-2, Mirage 11-17-3-2 and Sele-istle 14-10-3-2."

Ariel continued the briefing as they reached the next row of units "The Tier 1 Interceptors are the Tier 1 air-to-air solution. They are functionally identical units, and with the same factional order they are the Cyclone, Prowler, Conservator and Ia-atha being the four choices, all costing 100 tons. The LWHC data are approximately 21-19-4-3, 17-22-9-2, 22-13-2-2, and 29-20-4-2 respectively. The Prowler has the weakest firepower-health balance, but its agility, slim head-on profile and flexible gun angles are very helpful in evasive manoeuvres. The Conservator's tiny profile also helps it overcome the small DPS disadvantage. The Cyclone has by far the highest alpha strike from its belly weapon, but a slower reload. The Ia-atha's weapons are in the right, small arm, not the left, large one, and is overall the best in terms of the raw numbers, but it has a more limited gunnery arc downward than even the Cyclone."

Hannah took over with "The Tier 1 Attack Bombers, all at 200 tons with fairly long-ranged and thus quite useful 'radar' systems, are the Scorcher of LWHC 25-26-7-2, Zeus 18.5-36-4-3.5, Shimmer 11.5-46-2-2 and Sinnve 18-47-3.5-2. The Scorcher drops a line of firebombs and the Zeus a spread of bombs with a large blast radius. The Aeon Shimmer has a third lower DPS, but has a good splash and stuns targets in the splash area for a few seconds, as well has having better single-target damage. The Seraphim Sinnve has better damage than the Shimmer, but lacks the stun effect. The width of the Zeus meant that during the Seraphim War it was one of the aircraft unable to be built and launched by the Command Class, though that has since been circumvented."

Ariel's turn was much, much, MUCH bigger than Hannah's "The four Tier 1 Light Air Transports cost the same 240 tons, and can carry six Tech 1 units, eight for Seraphim, 3 Tech 2, or 1 Tech 3 unit. The C-6 Courier has LWHC of 84-25-15-6, though that clearance is between the main hull and the ground, because the legs are very obvious. When the transport is loaded it partly rests itself on the units it carries if they are tall enough to require that. The Skyhook is 100-56-30-5, and as per the Cybran archetype of flexibility it can upgrade itself to the Tier 2. The Chariot is 30-30-8-2, and the Vish is 150-70-30-10. Despite the intense visual similarity, the Vish cannot upgrade to the Vishala, due to internal differences. Since Light Assault Bots, referred to as LABs, are capable of firing from a transport in the forward arc with only minor loss of accuracy within a limited range band, 'ghetto gunships' with transports and LABs are a popular option and, quite frankly, it's basically why LABs are still available to be built. However once Tier 2 flak comes into play they are mostly ineffective, as flak damages units attached to transports too, and LABs have trivial health compared to the power of flak. Ghetto gunships are only capable of attacking ground units, while real gunships can hit other gunships and transports as well."

"Speaking of gunships, the Cybran Nation is the only faction to have a Tier 1 gunship among its standard unit roster, the Jester. It costs 360 tons, which is a 10% improvement from the Seraphim War era, making it by far the most expensive Tier 1 air or land unit, and is considered only a little less cost-effective than the typical Tier 2 gunship." Hannah said proudly as they finally strolled past the aft end of the Vish to see the relatively tiny gunship. "LWHC is 22-17-4.5-1. Some UEF, Aeon and Seraphim pilots field counterpart units, but they're not considered to be on the standard roster and the Jester is still considered the best among the Tier 1 Light Gunships."

Ariel cleared her throat, reminding her friend of a field where the Cybran option was considered the weakest "The Tier 2 unit roster begins with the Fighter-Bombers, all costing 840 tons, which is actually more than Tier 3 Air Superiority Fighters. The UEF Janus has LWHC 38-20-5-2, and pitches its wings forward for better agility when in close combat, dropping two rows of firebombs when attacking ground and using an improved counterpart to the Cyclone's weapons against air units. The Cybran Corsair has 46-29-12-4, though you see the lower rear wings folded along the upper rear wings right now to park on the ground, so it's a little taller when flying. It has a Nanodart system which reconfigures to attack ground with unguided rockets, or assaults enemy air units with guided missiles. Unlike the others it can't do both at the same time, but it is better than the Janus at attacking any one ground target, and is capable of attacking the enemy with full effectiveness even during the wildest of evasive manoeuvres, so raw stats like DPS and health don't tell the whole story, though it still loses one on one against the other fighter-bombers. The Seraphim Notha measures 24-21-4-2, using direct-fire weapons and doing its damage in a single bomb. It has less HP than the Janus, the same anti-air DPS, and slightly less anti-ground total DPS, though it is better against single targets."

"The Tier 2 Torpedo Bombers all cost 480 tons and are considered equivalent units, only able to attack ships and submarines and all carrying the same level of what we still call 'sonar'. The Stork is 20-30-5-2 in size and is the most durable, along with a hull most prone to evading unguided non-flak anti-air fire due to the gaps, though its torpedoes are the slowest, which means faster units can sometimes get off extra flares when being attacked by a group of Storks. The Cormorant is the frailest and also a large, solid target for AA fire at 30-30-7-2. It fires three weaker torpedoes than the Stork per run, giving it the best paper DPS of the four, partly bypassing most types of torpedo defence which can only fire two anti-torpedoes at a time. The Skimmer at 22-22-4-2 uses Harmonic Depth Charges which cannot be intercepted by anti-torpedoes. The Uosioz at 20-16-3-2 is important into Tier 3 as the Seraphim lack a Tier 3 gunship in their standard line-up, though one is working its way toward being part of the standard line, I hear. Reflecting that importance, since the Seraphim War it has changed to fire four torpedoes per run, with a bit longer reload than the others. It has the second best on-paper DPS after the Cormorant, and bypasses anti-torpedoes more effectively. Effectively speaking though, the units are still equally effective."

Hannah had no qualms about demeaning the UEF, ostensibly since it had been a UEF commander who'd tried to go nuts on them during the final battle to close the Quantum Rift. Actually it was because while the Aeon mostly just wanted to kill Cybrans the UEF had been obsessed with enslaving them. Hannah's first opinion on being ordered to cooperate with Hackett, beyond professional courtesy, had basically been the same as Elite Commander Dostya's toward working with the United Earth Federation.

 _HATEHATEHATEHATERIPTEARDESTROYKILLPURGEANNIHILATECASTRATEBURNDIEDIEDIE_ had accidentally been mentally posted by the Elite Commander on her daily streaming when the first news of such came out. General Hall had to issue a joint statement with Dostya about the Elite Commander's past as a self-maintaining sex doll and how she was being ridiculously polite and generally nice to the UEF commanders she worked with considering that fact. In "unrelated" news, a couple days after that announcement a small army of mostly female hackers assaulted several websites in the UEF which sold sex robot blueprints for nanolathing. There was also a good spate of murders of high-class citizens who were known to have owned Symbionts before the Liberation Matrix was spread through the Quantum Gate Network. It was not a diplomatic incident because all the murders were traced back to very respectable UEF citizens, in the name of the unity that was needed for humanity to survive. The Symbiont Rights Movement within the UEF had been forced to stay quiet for quite long enough, and with the Coalition forming they came into the open. Due to diplomatic pressure from the Aeon Loyalists and Cybran Nation the cases were later dismissed as "elimination of slavers, and therefore legally righteous". No action was ever taken due to fear of Cybran Commando or Aeon Inquisitor retaliation.

We should point out that a number of these murders were conducted by well-known and respected UEF commanders. Some may have been political, to show their new allies that most of the UEF was merely unaware of the Symbionts' treatment and that they had the will to change. Others may have been personal hatred or moral protest.

Of course, Hannah did acknowledge that their units were still effective, and noted in detail how things had changed somewhat since the Seraphim War among the torpedo bombers. Back then they had been exactly equal except the Aeon depth charges and the different HP levels. Since then the UEF torpedo technology was starting to show some of its age and problems, but the UEF remained more than competitive in many other aspects. For example…

"Among the Tier 2 Gunships, which all cost 600 tons, the Stinger is reckoned to be the second most powerful and flexible against ground targets, but the best in gunship-to-gunship combat. The Renegade is much more effective at dealing with large masses of densely packed weak units, while the Stinger is 10% tougher and has a souped-up transport clamp able to carry a Tier 1 or 2 ground unit, which often means a squad of Sky Boxers and Parashields fielded on demand. The Stinger's weapon is also much more accurate when fighting other gunships or transports and has the same single-target paper DPS as the Renegade. The Aeon Spectre has more DPS but lacks the Stinger's flexibility, while the Seraphim Vulthoo has the same DPS as the Stinger but slightly less HP and no transport clamp, making it strictly inferior except that it fires in bursts, which makes a difference in one-on-one cookie-cutter duels considering alpha strike effect, and is smaller, so can dodge Tier 1 AA better. It is still adequate and balanced compared to the other gunships. The Stinger, Renegade, Spectre and Vulthoo have LWHC respectively of 30-21-16-0, and yes that's because the Stinger lands on its front thrusters, 33-22-6.5-1.5, 29-31-12-2, and 27-10-10-0.5, though the clearance number there is for the lowest part of the Vulthoo's compact hull." Ariel found her faction's to be best at the specific gunship role if used as a surgical strike, though in army-killing she admitted the Renegade was far superior.

"Looks like it's my turn with the big guys of Tier 2, makes sense given the two unique units are both Aeon…" Hannah observed as they came to the next row. "The Tier 2 Air Transports all cost 1200 tons, and are faster than their Tier 3 counterparts when fully loaded, as well as more durable per unit mass spent, a major change since the Seraphim War. The C-14 Star Lifter has LWHC 143-34-13-6 not counting the bottom guns and thrusters, which basically touch the ground with the legs deployed. As the label says, it carries 14 Tier 1 units in two rows of seven. That means it can only carry 6 Tier 2 as they have to be on the same row, though the four clamps needed per Tier 3 can be on neighbouring rows. It has linked railguns and two Tomcat Machineguns, giving it two times 24 AA DPS and 21 anti-ground DPS, not too bad compared to the Stinger which has 60 anti-ground DPS. Then there's the Dragon Fly at 144-73-30-5, which carries 10 Tier 1, and has a structural adaptation in its clamps that allows it to carry five Tier 2 unlike the other factions' requirements of Tier 2s using transport clamps on the same side. It can carry at most two Tier 3s plus a Tier 2, but is still considered fully competitive because it brings much more DPS than the Star Lifter against ground targets using the Nano Dart system mounted under the tail and the particle cannon under the bow to deliver near-gunship-level firepower, and has an EMP weapon to boot. The Aluminar at 130-95-55-0 in standard posture uses hover technology, so it rests its head and tail on the ground when idle and not carrying anything and is rather shorter in height. It has no anti-ground weapon, but it does have a good anti-air battery and carries 12 Tier 1 units, 6 Tier 2 or 3 Tier 3. The Vishala is at about 147-72-45-12, if you count that bottom spike on the back pod as ground clearance for the main hull when it lands as well as actual hull height. It has 16 clamps, the most of the four Tier 2 Transports, and has okay DPS against air and ground targets, though somewhat weaker than the UEF counterpart in either aspect. That is the price for having enough anti-gravity and thrust installed to be able to carry and move four Tier 3 land units."

* * *

 **A/N** : The weapon names for the transports are utter bullshit for their DPS. A Disintegrator Pulse Laser should have WAY more DPS than that abomination that is on the Dragon Fly in-game… also buffed the costs to be slightly less stupidly light for the size.

I'm also making the Mercy MUCH less costly due to how laughably bad it is against flak, and how 3800s tech would have made flak batteries prioritize anything matching the flight profile (speed) of a Mercy, or identified as one, above all other targets. The Swift Wind can cost-effectively counter a Restorer at only 200 mass apiece… how about a nerf to 220 mass, because the fighter-bombers are so ludicrously costlier in comparison?

* * *

"The two Tier 2 unique air units in common use are the Mercy Guided Missile at 200 tons with LWHC 39-11-7-2, and the Swift Wind Combat Fighter at 440 tons with LWHC 30-32-8.5-1.5. The Aeon Combat Fighter is very cost-effective, especially against fighter-bombers, but can't do squat against ground targets and is more fragile, so flak eats it badly. The Mercy is only effective in areas with no Tier 2 anti-air weapons or enemy fighters, because it is pathetically fragile. It is the main reason the Tier 3 air transports, even those not in common use, have shields, to screen a payload of Mercies or factional counterparts before a drop… though for the Cybrans that means a litter of Fire Beetles, usually. Fortunately Mercies now can refuel, and will keep flying at half speed when out of fuel like other aircraft. Unlike other air units, it can still fire its weapon, which destroys it, when out of fuel."

The brunette looked toward the slightly younger black-haired woman, wondering… "You keep going, I want the ASFs." Hannah said.

Ariel shrugged, not surprised, and made her talk short. "The Tier 3 air units begin with the Tier 3 Spy Planes, they all cost 390 tons. The SR-90 Blackbird, the Spook, the Seer and the Iaselen are the four, with LWHC at 42-28-9-2, 23-49-8-1, 32-16-2-2 and 32-25-8-2 respectively. The Spook and Iaselen have sonar, while the Blackbird and Seer have only radar, visual and Omni sensors. The Spook is considered the best due to its Personal Stealth, but has the lowest health by far and lowest fuel capacity. The Seer is considered the worst of the four due to having the second lowest health and no special perks. Currently Aeon R&D are working on making it cheaper without losing any effectiveness."

"The Tier 3 Aerospace Superiority Fighters are the Wasp, Gemini, Corona and Iazyne, with LWHC of 32-35-5.5-2.5, 34-27-9-2, 34-33-3.5-2, and 33-27-6.5-2 respectively, each one being 800 tons. The Gemini is considered the best in air-to-air combat by far due to its missiles and Personal Stealth, but is the most fragile." Hannah made hers comparably short, until she clarified with. "The stealth systems needed to cruise at supersonic speeds without alerting sensors across the continent is what makes fighter-bombers and ASFs so immensely heavy for their size, compared to historical air units of greater size than they."

"Tier 3 Strategic Bombers are the strongest bombers available except Experimentals. The Ambassador, Revenant, Shocker and Sinntha are the four available, at 38-42-6.5-2, 36-48-11-2, 40-62-8.5-2, and 21-70-6-3 respectively. They are basically flying armoured bricks which spend too much mass on armour and anti-gravity gear in my opinion, all costing about 4200 tons apiece. The UEF choice is considered a balanced design, the Cybran Revenant has lower damage but bigger splash, the Aeon Shocker has the best damage but smallest splash, and the Seraphim Sinntha is between the Aeon and UEF options. However, the UEF and Cybran options have AA weapons able to ward off Interceptors, with the Cybran better than the UEF due to using missiles, not projectiles. The Shocker is best for the surgical strikes Strategic bombers are normally sent on, but the Sinntha has a post-drop speed boost ability which improves it survivability somewhat." Ariel stated as they walked past those dense flying bricks to other flying bricks, these intended to linger in an area and pound away.

"The Seraphim Separatists have recently fielded a Tier 3 Heavy Gunship, but it is not usually considered part of the standard roster due to having cost effectiveness problems still to be worked out. The three regular Tier 3 Gunships are the Broadsword, Wailer, and Restorer, of LWHC 39-35-18-0, 37-29-9-2, and 45-38-21-3. The Broadsword and Wailer cost 3360 tons, while the Restorer costs only 3000 tons but has laughably inferior air-to-ground firepower, in favour of being able to engage Air Superiority Fighters favourably and having more structural field strength, using low-density armour to compensate in terms of strength compared to, say, the very dense armour of the strategic bombers. The Wailer has a radar jammer able to draw SAM fire into non-existent targets, and stronger AA, which compensates on its more overkill-prone anti-ground weapon and slightly weaker health than the Broadsword." Hannah pointed out, thinking about the issues of the Vulthuum design.

* * *

 **A/N:** Because the Restorer is OP at 1200 mass and so much more durability (7200 to 6000 and 5900 respectively, with 160 anti-ground and 130 AA DPS to the others' about 300 anti-ground, remember gunships can shoot other gunships and transports with anti-ground weapons) to the others' 1680 mass. I'm increasing the cost to a more reasonable 1500 mass.

The density of strategic bombers must really be something… only the Shocker can be reliably calculated given its shape to be less dense than water (about half as dense in fact). The Revenant needs to have its AA buffed to at least equal the Ambassador to be balanced with it due to 7.5% less HP AND less bomb DPS on paper, not letting it one-shot Tier 2 mass extractors or even kill a Tier 3 mass extractor with 3 bombers.

In addition the mass cost of a Continental is sadly low for its enormous bulk, and makes the Star Lifter completely obsolete in comparison, given those two anti-surface guns are supposed to be heavy plasma cannons… so boosting cost from 2000 to 3000 mass seems reasonable considering the massive increase in durability and firepower

* * *

If the gunships were flying bricks then one of the things they were looking at now was a flying house. "The two unique Tier 3 units on the standard roster are very different. The first is the UEF Heavy Transport, the Continental, at a cost of 6000 tons with LWHC 155-95-30-5, though that's the clearance under the rear hull half with the front resting on the ground when nothing is onboard. It has a shield bubble which allows it to be a powerful ghetto gunship, and pretty good firepower itself with its two plasma cannons and anti-air missile turrets. Then there is the Aeon Heavy Torpedo Bomber, the Solace, costing 3300 tons with LWHC 39-53-6-3, capable of killing any faction's cruiser in a single attack run. It is the reason why flak has been going to sea on more and more ships since the Seraphim War, because it targets cruisers first and peels off the moment it drops its torpedoes, which then allow other air units, such as gunships, which flak is good against, to come in and kill the fleet." Ariel stated proudly.

"The other factions have also designed Heavy Transports, but only the Continental is considered sufficiently cost-effective compared to the Tier 2 options to count as standard roster, though the others have been gaining popularity in recent times. The Vishuum for example is one of the very few actually symmetric Seraphim units, with much weaker armament than the Continental but larger cargo capacity and a tougher shield. The Cybran Nation's venture into mobile shields began with their Dragoon, and we expect to see a mobile shield generator cost-effective enough to be approved for general deployment soon enough. Certainly there are grumbles about homogenization of the factions, but no one wants to be left behind just because of a need to feel special. Unusually, the Dragoon both carries a stealth field for all the units it transports, and a radar jammer which can generate false signatures. This means that it is definitely not among the signatures picked up, unlike the Wailer."

"So what's the name for the Aeon Heavy Transport?" Hinata wondered, since unlike other Aeon units' translations there seemed to be no theme for the transports…

"The preliminary name for the design is the Light Bringer." Ariel supplied. "It is comparable to the Continental, but with less load capacity and weapons, a tougher shield, and higher speed. Alright, now we go on to the Experimentals, none of which require fuel due to the built-in reactors being sufficient to sustain them." Seeing no sign of Hannah starting with the cheapest one, she showed a hologram, as they didn't have the building here and the satellites weren't being launched or near the ground at the moment either. "The cheapest flying experimental is the Novax Satellites and associated Novax Center. The control center deploys a sub-orbital hovering satellite which it feeds power remotely to and orders around as pretty much an indestructible gunship unless someone really wants to give away the positions of some of their indirect fire units for pot-shots, or throw away a major squadron of Aerospace Superiority Fighters while losing more of them than the satellite is worth. Each Center will automatically build and support up to four more satellites after the initial launch, and replaces losses. However, they are somewhat costly units, and the center itself plus its first satellite costs 74400 tons of Mass. A decent set of Shields will stop them completely due to low DPS on the orbital laser."

"The Cybran aerial Experimental is the Soul Ripper Experimental Gunship, 80000 tons, LWHC 200-190-140-60, if you count the legs in the height but at the same time count the space under the belly as the ground clearance when landed. It is the most durable air unit by a long shot. It is also the only one that can both loiter and has massive splash damage, which makes it good in groups for major assaults. Its anti-air armament is merely acceptable though against other aerial units that aren't too huge. It is currently capable of beating a CZAR one on one if correctly used, despite the CZAR having vastly superior AA DPS to overcome the health difference. While the CZAR can hit it with its Quantum Beam Generator and all its anti-air batteries, a Soul Ripper can and will fly upside-down using its anti-gravity systems to empty its anti-ground batteries into the CZAR, which is large enough to target with them. The CZAR does not have a speed advantage and thus cannot outmanoeuvre the Soul Ripper in this respect."

"Speaking of the CZAR, that's the Experimental Flying Carrier of the Aeon Illuminate at 90000 tons and LWH 480-505-180. It doesn't land after it gets constructed, unless it is destroyed, upon which the crash damage is huge, covers a large area, and is very easy to aim at an enemy. It can build any Aeon air unit that's not a transport or Mercy, and can house anything but a transport. Like the Atlantis, 150 aircraft can fit inside its Quantum Storage Spaces. The central hole contains a Quantum Beam Generator that burns whatever is underneath it and has a significant splash radius. Sadly, it's not good for massed attacks due to having to give each other space and the main anti-ground weapon being the Quantum Beam Generator. It has a strong anti-air armament and can drop depth charges, as well as having radar and sonar." Ariel stated, annoyed at Hannah's advocacy of the Soul Ripper being superior in a one-on-one brawl. "The CZAR has the strongest anti-air battery in the Coalition unit roster by a very long shot."

Hinata was still trying very hard to crick her neck looking up at the huge, slowly rotating flying saucer high above them, which shimmered out of view to show a less impressively giant craft seemingly almost lying on the ground ahead.

"Ahwassa Experimental Bomber, 96000 tons, LWHC 280-305-75-9. This drops the most powerful bomb in the Coalition field arsenal, which is admittedly different from our classified arsenals. Design refinements since the Seraphim War mean it no longer needs as long an attack run to deploy its bomb, but unless flying over enemy territory, despite a bomb reload of 10 seconds, it's still common to only be able to drop one every half-minute or so, which makes its practical DPS quite awful. The huge splash radius and immense alpha makes it great for killing Tier 3 armies in the field though. I should note that its anti-air DPS is actually higher than anti-ground paper DPS, due to its three very powerful AA turrets that each outstrip even the Seraphim Tier 3 AA turret." Hannah pointed out the three turret in question. "A swarm of these pouring through the Quantum Rift burnt Earth, humanity's homeworld, to a scorched ruin back in 3844, five years ago. Back then the Seraphim didn't have our robotic armies, but their technology was quite superior. As they adapted to be more efficient at killing us by creating ACUs and SCUs of their own, we adapted too by throwing as many innovations into our units as we could come up with. It took years to fight them to a standstill, close the Quantum Rift, and finally eradicate all Seraphim Imperium forces in our galaxy. The factions of the Coalition have since been helping the United Earth Federation in fixing the planet, and already the atmosphere is breathable again. Perhaps someday you will be able to see where all humanity hailed from… once we've fixed it up enough to not look like a tomb world, as it does now."

Then the Cybran continued with, before her Aeon compatriot had a chance to talk, an important Cybran unit "Finally there are the battle ending units, often called Game Enders. Among those, the only one that actually moves is the Scathis Experimental Mobile Artillery, which is also the lightest and cheapest among them. It has LWH 170-140-50 when the guns are retracted and fully seated on the hull, with a mass of 300000 tons it admittedly relies greatly on levitation technology to not bog down. It fires a Proton Artillery shell at up to 40 kilometers range—that's considering shell stealth needs, otherwise it's a surface to space weapon—every two seconds, dealing a solid 900 DPS with huge splash, though splash no longer passes shields except by line of sight outside the surfaces. However the accuracy is very poor due to shell stealth needs and the extremely high shell arc used to bypass obstacles. Therefore it cannot be relied upon to pierce heavily shielded bases, especially not before the enemy gauges an approximate area and throws most of their army or air force at it to get rid of the grave threat. However any base with less than a huge amount of shields will very quickly be flattened."

The Scathis had been reduced in effectiveness—the loss in range due to better counter-stealth technology was the main impetus to changing it—since its Infinite War days, but it was much cheaper and slightly less glacially slow now. It was also now capable of swimming (VERY slowly) to cross bodies of water, which kept it relevant if the battle moved.

Ariel wrapped things up with "All of these are of course only the standard models, there are… a wide variety of mishmash modifications, depending on the particular commander. For example, some Aeon commanders, instead of using the Beacon as the backbone of their Tier 1 fleets, often field a modified Shard with an anti-surface weapon instead, trading off unit durability per unit mass, anti-torpedo ability, sensors, and some of the cheapness for a fast anti-surface unit. Cybran commanders are known to accept a significant cost increase to the Salem to put a flak weapon on it instead of the electron autocannon battery, for water-borne mobile flak coverage against gunship swarms. Even the Cooper has alternative versions that put a considerably modified Sky Boxer turret on the back, lengthening the hull slightly and costing a good chunk of Mass but bringing flak coverage to sea besides the Summit Class, imitating the Seraphim Yathsou but at a lower tier, cost and power."

She thought for a moment, then added "A third main battery turret for the Neptune is also a common modification, but it does increase the cost considerably for additional reactors, and the frailty of the ship is a big turn-off for such an investment for some commanders. There are also units that as I previously mentioned are considered less cost-effective than the alternatives and thus rarely used by most commanders. For example, whereas the Jester has 525 HP, and 48 DPS, the Seraphim Tier 1 Light Gunship at the same price tag has 575 HP, and only 36 DPS from the two jury-rigged Oh Spectra Cannons, but is still useful in certain situations, and the UEF has 600 HP and 35 DPS from its Tomcat Machineguns, while the Aeon option has 550 HP and 40 DPS from its laser battery. The Jester is notably superior to the others, but all the others are still useful units. For the UEF and Aeon there are also Tier 1 attack planes with good loiter time which perform attack runs using guns and rockets, but attack bombers basically supplanted those. They couldn't compete with gunships for loiter time or durability despite better DPS on paper, which is why only the Tier 1 versions even still have blueprints updated to current tech. The concept was simply… abandoned… despite the Cormorant originally being descended from one such design. However, some commanders do field them. The air units overall have the fewest mod options, while the naval units have the most due to freedom of bulk and vast reserve passive buoyancy. I think that's it for the units, now, let's check the progress of the trace on where you came from…"

Hannah cleared her throats "Uh, Ariel, I think we forgot the command units."

The Aeon woman facepalmed. She hadn't remembered to list them as combat units, since only the Seraphim command units were commonly brought into battle due to their awesome support abilities. In other news, there was work on putting structural field boosters on mobile units, to improve the efficiency of armies. "Ugh… well then… small-scale holograms it is then, at least for now, she can get a good look later when we take her home and establish contact with the locals."

Hannah pulled up a hologram of the four ACUs "The Armored Command Unit is the technology that led to such immense casualties and the practical uselessness of a space-based navy during the Infinite War. It is able to travel by Quantum Gate to any location, usually a planet, within range of the Quantum Gate Network, and construct an army anywhere at any time. Its firepower is adequate against Tier 1 and some Tier 2 units when un-upgraded, but should never be brought into combat against more than a handful of Tier 3s or any Experimentals even when upgraded, unless it is Cybran, Seraphim, or repeatedly using the Overcharge ability on the main weapon. Due to the QGN's limitations, ACUs cannot gate with upgrades installed. The UEF ACU has the best upgraded build rate if both shoulder drones are installed, and its back can mount a tactical missile launcher with the power of a strategic warhead, or a shield dome. These offer high firepower or the ability to build firebases while under attack respectively, but overall the UEF ACU has the weakest combat power. The Aeon ACU is similarly ineffective against Tier 3 units, but can be upgraded with personal shields that make it tougher than the UEF counterpart. The Cybran ACU can use personal stealth and cloaking technology, and can equip a Heavy Microwave Laser with less range but the same DPS as that of the Monkeylord, making it easily the most dangerously armed ACU. The Seraphim ACU can carry a tactical missile launcher, enhanced nano-repair system, and restoration field, which when put together with a group of combat-configured SCUs and a few Ythothas is almost unstoppable to enemy ground units, though it does put the ACU and therefore most of the army at risk of being destroyed in one fell swoop. The Seraphim ACU is the most commonly used of the ACUs on the front line due to its support abilities."

Ariel's hologram, which was also pulled up from a projector on her chest plate, showed the four Support Command Units "The Support Command Units, sometimes referred to as Support Armoured Command Units, are used when you want to summon support commanders to supervise bases, or just so that you can get some sleep if you don't have any other friendly ACUs on the field with you. They are also very useful in constructing firebases and such while under fire, due to a combination of high build rate, huge health pools, and other abilities. The UEF SCU has the worst upgraded build rate, but can mount the toughest mobile shield bubble system available. The Cybran SCU has the highest initial health, and can use stealth and cloak together, allowing it to reclaim wreckage or capture enemy units on a battlefield with impunity when Omni coverage is absent. It can mount a powerful anti-air missile battery instead if desired, and can upgrade its main weapon to have Tier 3 levels of DPS. The Aeon ACU can choose a combination of teleporter, a powerful personal shield, or nano-repair system for its back and left arm, or a rapid fabricator which speeds up its build rate. It lacks any upgrades to directly increase firepower though. The Seraphim SCU can also teleport, but it can also mount a tactical missile launcher or a powerful shield on the back, adding to a nano-repair system and Overcharge option to become a very powerful combat unit. As you can guess, being able to teleport to build another firebase somewhere is very powerful indeed."

"And that's it for the units, there are many structures, but I think this is quite enough information for one day." Hannah wrapped things up, her circuitry pulsing as she grinned at the short girl sandwiched between two of the Coalition's Elite Four.

Hinata kept her mouth shut as she was still partly mentally stuck on the casual chatter about an entire world bombed to ash.

* * *

 _Forecast for some time in the future…_

" _Um, guys?" Seth said while they were all lazing about._

 _Xavier was tickling Hannah, who was giggling and generally trying to make Hinata's blush and averted eyes not tick too far away, but still wear down on her shyness by gradual exposure to public displays of affection. Meanwhile, Hackett was watering his pet dandelion. Ariel was on duty in her ACU, so was conspicuously absent._

 _Seth realized his translator had been turned off while he was still working on learning how to talk in the human English. Chinese was too hard for him at present, in his opinion. You'd think learning legalese would make learning other, less diabolical languages easier, but apparently even a lawyer who used to work with used car salesmen had a hard time learning new languages as an adult… He turned his translator back on, and spoke louder "GUYS!"_

" _What is it, Seth?" Fran stopped tickling his wife and looked over. The others did too, though Hackett stopped watering his plant to not risk drowning it._

" _I just searched the name 'Hinata Hyuuga' on the Internet. We have a problem."_

* * *

 **A/N: I rebalanced a few units, mostly by improvements to weak, underused ones, but relative power is still fairly consistent for the most part, except obviously for the Sniper Bots which got nerfed HARD but actually got better in power per unit mass, and the Carriers which now are actually not plastic foam mountains (which wall sections effectively are). I also presume the coding and path-finding for the war machines of the 3800s is better than for a 2008 video game.**

 **In other news, I have taken another good, long look at Hanabi as she appears BEFORE the movie "The Last"… I suspect she will be going missing at some point in an actual universe-hopping event, and what comes home… see Kantai Collection and look for someone with the right hairstyle and coloration (will give answer in a few chapters).**

 **OH SHIT THE FOURTH WALL IS CRUMBLING (the forecast says a lot)! REVIEW PLEASE!**


	5. The Orange Swarm Begins

A/N: **For anyone who did not heed my very obvious and clear warnings about "chapter" 4 being a massive data-dump, that's your own fault given the notices I put up about skipping it being fine.**

I envision the First Shinobi World War to have begun about 15 years PWC, lasting 5 years, the second about 40 PWC (20 years after the first ended), and as Nagato was supposed to be 35 in Part 2, I'm adjusting things slightly there. The Third Shinobi World War began around 55 PWC and ended about 60 PWC, three years before the Nine-Tails attacked Konoha.

Most terms will be English, mostly it is the names that will stay Japanese.

* * *

Chapter 5: The Orange Swarm Begins

 _Local Date: March 25, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC_

Hiashi yawned, but stayed at his post in the Hokage Tower waiting for news about Hinata like a good father should. There had been no news yet, but he had gotten a messenger bird from his father, the former clan head, it said something about kicking some asses back at the compound who were already raring to make Hanabi the new heir. Hiashi continued reading since it had been a while since he'd seen his father go nuts, and the old man was always a good laugh… wait, no, he had to maintain a pole-up-ass stiff image so that whenever he DID show emotion people took him seriously enough. _Center yourself, Hiashi! Wait, are you sure we should talk about ourselves in second or third-person? Great, now I'm debating with myself and reasonably sure I'm losing… and I thought Hinata's crush on the Uzumaki brat was nuts… I wonder if insanity is hereditary in the eye-related bloodlines…_

…Hmm, apparently the old man was furious now that he'd learnt that one of his (rare) drunken emo lamentations over Hizashi's death had been directed at Hinata and Neji. He was beyond furious after realizing both his grandchildren had actually taken his alcohol-fuelled "everyone is chained by fate" seriously. He blathered to Hiashi in the letter that he should have told the kids to go clean Fate's clock… Hiashi had sighed when reading this, because his father had become an on-again off-again alcoholic since Hizashi died, and it was obvious from the scrawl he'd been dipping in the bottle again. As a side note, the old man had invented a new Hyuuga Taijutsu style… the Gentle Drunk. But that was another story, right up there in level of secrecy with Hiashi's spider impersonations due to being surprised by his wife eventually evolving into Orochimaru and Tsunade roleplaying.

In related news, it was only after his wife died that he'd let his hair grow long again and let a conditioner bottle near it again, because he realized it was his long, silky hair that gave his wife the idea. Unfortunately though Hitomi may or may not have misunderstood what "Gentle Fist" meant when doing said role-plays, which included nude sparring. It was more than worthwhile for him because of the mind-blowing pleasure she'd subjected him to, but it wasn't exactly good for his reputation to be known as the screamer in the marriage. Then again at least Hitomi's nymphomania had been better than Hizashi who was stuck with a wife who for all intents and purposes acted like a tuna.

Hitomi Hyuuga had been the type to, along with Kushina Uzumaki, probably contribute to Orochimaru finally losing it and conducting the sort of experiments he did at the end. Making a Sannin shit himself and run was no simple task, after all… but a Gentle Fist version of the legendary One Thousand Years of Death was certainly enough to do the job. Hiashi strongly suspected Orochimaru had been reading too many of Jiraiya's smut novels and gotten curious about the general feel of anal sex and thus let himself be hit without remembering the Gentle Fist problem… or maybe Kushina's chains had just been too good at holding him in place. Regardless, the rumours about semi-regular loss of anal control afterward, if true, may have caused Orochimaru to be obsessed with switching bodies. Hiashi preferred not to think about how grateful he was that Hitomi's insane episodes—almost all catalyzed by Kushina—never resulted in her experimenting on him. Wait…

…

…Hiashi really, _really_ needed to stop reading his eldest daughter's Icha-Icha collection. If just sitting around and waiting for a few hours led to him wondering why his wife had been interested in using the Gentle Fist up a man's ass, well… Hiashi shivered, not wanting to imagine what would happen if he was bored for longer. Hiashi suddenly caught sight of something through his Byakugan.

 _Wait… that's the Uzumaki brat, what's he doing here? And… that chakra pattern he just… shifted… that is not possible. Wait, that shape, those curves, and that hairstyle… when Hitomi learnt hair techniques from Kushina…_ Hiashi's mind went blank as he saw a chakra form that looked disturbingly like something between his deceased wife on one of her Nine-Tails fuelled lust manhunts … uh, maybe rampages was a better word… and the previous Uzumaki going wild. _Dammit I have a boner again remembering her, stupid third leg all lust and no romance, ugh… better hide to try to not arouse too much jealousy… or too many pursuers._ Hiashi thought of how Neji had so many fan-girls, if he'd inherited size from Hizashi then he better as hell have skill too, or he'd be a big, BIG (literally) disappointment… _Pretend Panic Attack Technique!_

Naruto thought the guy with long, dark brown, and remarkably glossy-looking hair sitting in the corner, beside the potted plant next to the waiting bench, rocking back and forth clutching his knees and muttering to himself looked out of place. However, he wasn't about to stop and talk as he raced past him with the Forbidden Scroll on his back. Especially since he recognized the man from the list of the village council members, someone important could really trip up his escape with the scroll, and then he'd fail Mizuki-sensei's alternative test!

* * *

 _Early Morning, March 26, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC_

"What the hell, Mizuki!" Iruka hissed as he felt the kunai and shuriken hit him as he shoved Naruto out of the way, but they didn't pierce nearly as far in as they should have given the speed he'd seen them coming with. They wouldn't have debilitated him anyways, but… this was weird… they seemed to be sticking to him, or at least his clothes, while not actually hurting him much. If Mizuki had really decided to steal the Forbidden Scroll there was something very wrong with this situation, but just in case it was a ploy to throw him off… Iruka had caught Mizuki as a co-conspirator with Naruto on some pranks before and no doubt his possibly former friend had learnt… and Tsubaki breaking it off with the man didn't bode well for his loyalty or lack thereof either.

"Naruto, give me the Scroll now!" Mizuki shouted, noting that the superglue mixture that the brat had told him about after a particularly good prank really worked as advertised.

"Wait a minute… what's going on here?"

"Naruto! Don't let Mizuki get the scroll! It contains forbidden techniques that can put this village in grave danger! Mizuki used you to get the scroll for himself for his own power!" Iruka barked.

Mizuki laughed "Bah… Iruka is just trying to scare you because he likes to stick by the rules where possible regarding the Academy exam, does anyone ever even use a basic Clone out in the field?" He had to be careful not to reveal that the Shadow Clone was much more useful though, or the kid would probably trust him too much for this ploy to work right. Now, how to pull Iruka out of being tsundere and get him to confess how much he'd bonded with the kid…

"Stop lying Mizuki! Don't let him trick you, Naruto!" Iruka said, pulling at the kunai in one leg and finding it stuck to his pants… it could be reckoned as smart, to force enemies to leave blades in while active and thus cut the wounds deeper, but Iruka was still trying to figure out his old buddy's motivations. Why was he talking so much instead of trying his best to kill Iruka and Naruto and run?

"I'll tell you who's lying, Naruto." The wording was something Mizuki had practiced many times, loose enough to not break the Third's law, but enough for the kid to figure it out.

"Mizuki no!" If Mizuki was still loyal and just using this as a roundabout way of telling Naruto about his tenant, Iruka didn't want his friend to be jailed for breaking the Third's law to any degree. If not, well…

"They've been lying to you your whole life kid, since the decree twelve years ago. Everyone knows except you, even Iruka's trying to hide it from you, even now."

Naruto pretended to have no clue, even though… twelve years ago, the day he was born, the day of the Nine-Tails attack… he'd thought about it before, but maybe Mizuki-sensei was just using this ploy to confirm it for him? "What is this decree? Why does everyone know?"

"Don't tell him, it's forbidden!" Iruka said, trying again to pull the superglue-coated and atypically blunt kunai and shuriken out. They came out far enough to stop stabbing him, and weren't sharp enough to cut on contact, which was suspicious, but the superglue was too much for him to make his clothes look less untidy.

"You'd think the academy would teach kids like they did back in our time. You can't kill a giant sentient mass of chakra, you can only seal it up. Kid, I think you can connect the dots then as to why so many villagers hate you given you were born on the day of the Nine-Tails Attack. Anyone much older than a newborn would have ruptured their chakra coils and died trying to hold a giant mass of chakra suddenly stuffed into them. We're not allowed to talk about it, but the villagers have warned their children about you, and children trust their parents, hence you were alone and friendless growing up…" Mizuki grimaced, glancing over at Iruka and wondering if he'd used a little too much superglue on those weapons. Man, why was it that whenever Iruka or later Naruto did a prank it came off so well, and whenever he tried things went sideways? Wait… Iruka was looking at him with exasperation instead of suspicion and anger, that's not how this was meant to go! Time to try to fix it and get things back on track to a confession… "The Fox killed Iruka's parents, you know, I think that might be part of why he wouldn't pass you." _I think that's over the line, hopefully Iruka doesn't take it too badly after—_

… _Oh shit_. The last time he'd seen that look on Iruka's face, the resulting prank that Iruka and he had pulled on their victim was about as huge as Naruto somehow managing to paint the Hokage Monument overnight without even knowing the Surface Clinging Technique. Uh… how best to prevent Iruka from ganking his ass with the basics Iruka so adored… "Prove yourself!" He yelled as he threw one of his favoured weapons, a giant shuriken, in Naruto's direction, aimed so that the point would land next to the kid's head unless he… oh for fuck's sake the kid tried to crawl away instead of lunging to the side. What the hell had he been doing during the class talking about projectile evasion at short to mid-range?

…Naruto in a theory lecture… yeah, okay, that was a dumb thought on Mizuki's part, he admitted to himself. Now hopefully Iruka noticed that his shuriken were scream-worthy in how much he'd blunted them, and how unusually slow that throw had been, but maybe he was too busy on his spiel right now hunched over Naruto to notice that he'd also coated the weapon's edges with a blood coagulant, and the rest with superglue to stick to fabric. _Goddamn it Iruka you idiot, I don't want to kill or maim you by accident when trying to win trust back from the village!_

* * *

 _One chase and ensuing confession later…_

"Yes! Objective achieved!" Mizuki dropped the latest giant shuriken he'd brought out of his storage seals to scare Naruto into helping Iruka. Then he did a little happy dance to try to help defuse the tension in the area "Now you know a Clone Technique and fulfilled the academy standards for passing, you know that you have a steadfast friend in the form of Iruka, you've bypassed the stupid law that has caused you to take dumb risks and such irrespective of your tenant, and I've sidestepped it too while helping deal with that possible risk to the Village of your ignorance!"

Iruka decided it would be better to help Mizuki in this since it was pretty damned obvious that he could have done better when trying to attack them "So that's why my wounds aren't bleeding nearly enough, and all your weapons were so blunted I don't think I could cut myself on one without really trying…"

"I'm confused." Naruto admitted in a thunderous cacophony of the same voice from the thousands of clones behind him.

"Kid, I could be jailed or maybe killed under the Third's Law if I just told you outright, but since you figured out who's inside that seal on your belly by yourself, the thing that's been letting you survive all the beatings over the years, I could talk about it safely in conversation to people who know. The semi-unaware person, as in you, listening in is not to be considered my fault, so in theory I shouldn't be punished for this if given fair trial. I can also claim that if you can actually bypass all the patrols and guards and steal the Scroll out from under the Hokage's nose, as well as learn a technique from it overnight, you are definitely worthy of being a Genin, if not a whole lot higher in rank." Mizuki said, grinning. "Want some solvent for the superglue Iruka? Must be uncomfortable having a giant shuriken stuck to a hole in your clothes…"

"I'll leave the superglue-coated weapons in my clothes until we get to the Hokage Tower, just in case you're lying and there's poison." Iruka said.

Mizuki waved him off, still smiling. "Yeah, yeah, I understand… guess I have an appointment with Inoichi at the very least. If he says anything about Tsubaki's preferences" read: fetishes, as kunoichi were generally not quite vanilla in terms of sexuality, much to the dismay of many male clan heirs, and the pleasure of almost as many "to the rumour mill though… well, I wrote you and Tsubaki into my will, Iruka. I'll try to stop her from murdering the Yamanaka clan head, but I don't think I'd succeed, probably be a collateral damage statistic, hah…"

"You angered her into breaking up with you so that you can pull this stunt and not get her investigated too, didn't you?"

Mizuki winced at the accusation "For fuck's sake Iruka, the Third is pretty much guaranteed to be watching Naruto by his Telescope Technique and you're saying that out loud to remind him just in case he forgets my girl… ah, ex-girlfriend?"

"For what it's worth, I'll go explain it to her while you're getting your mind walked."

"You better hope she doesn't get in trouble by association with me, you hear? Otherwise I'm going to occasionally unlock your academy drawers unlocked for any enterprising brats!" Mizuki waved his fist at Iruka. Far away, the Hokage shivered at the threat of more paperwork that had been made against Iruka, and had a fleeting thought that Mizuki needed some punishment for daring to make such a threat against another ninja. Paperwork was serious business! Though… it wasn't exactly just to punish the man for such a thing, almost as petty as Danzo in fact… so maybe not. On the other hand, the crime of unleashing a horde of Naruto on the village, uh…

Meanwhile, Naruto walked silently behind the two Chunin, amazed that one of his teachers would risk his career to help him, and the other risk his life to protect him. He looked up when the guy who started the night's mess said "Wait, Naruto, I need to clear this lesson with you. When you dodge projectiles, dodging backwards or forwards is often less effective than sideways or down, unless you suspect there are traps or follow-up attacks…" The lesson was short but to the point, and Mizuki hoped it sunk in better than the original theory lecture… Then again given Naruto's Taijutsu simply defied being forced into the Academy Style despite Mizuki's best efforts and he'd had to teach the kid what basically amounted to street brawling instead, Mizuki had serious doubts about that.

It was when they were nearly at the tower that Mizuki suddenly twitched and remembered something else that was critically important "Kid, don't think that I'm just doing this purely for you. Iruka is, but I'm doing this partly because the goddamned Council just won't trust me after one mission gone wrong where I was so focused on escaping that I accidentally strangled someone I was hauling back to friendly lines. I don't particularly WANT to be a Jonin or Spec Jonin, but at least having the option to take the exam would feel nice, because it would mean I'm trusted again." He stared down at where Naruto was hugging him, getting the feeling he'd failed utterly in defusing the kid's frequently excessive idealism.

Iruka had one of his pinky fingers jammed up one ear digging. "That… was the flimsiest excuse for helping anyone that I have ever had the misfortune to hear in my life."

Naruto's voice was muffled by the silver-haired man's clothes "Iruka-sensei said it right."

Mizuki facepalmed and groaned at his abysmal failure in one of his secondary objectives. On the other hand, he had contributed to (hopefully) creating Konoha's next legend. If the number of Shadow Clones back there was any indication, the Orange Swarm would rise soon enough.

…Wait…

… _To anyone who can hear my thoughts right now, please insert a mental scream. I am quite sure that the main part of my mind is still unable to conceptualize the horror it has unleashed upon the unsuspecting world._

…

… _Oh yeah, that's not nearly enough. Uh, let me think…_

…

… _To anyone who receives or finds this message, we wish you well. May organized, orderly, at least vaguely predictable civilization—in the by then former Elemental Nations—rise once more in the far distant future._

* * *

 _Later, Konoha T &I_

"Explain yourself." Hiruzen sat across the desk from Mizuki, who wasn't shackled or anything.

The Chunin sighed, knowing that he had better spill everything "Hokage-sama, I have seen Naruto do many reckless things over the years, and though it dangerous to the village for him to not know of his tenant and the potential dangers associated with it. So many people know of him that it is no secret except hiding it in the open, and I felt it was necessary to teach him to be less reckless, as well as ensure he is no longer a flight risk after that… incident a few years ago." Both men clamped their legs shut in sympathy even thinking back on the notice pinned to the pike in the market square announcing what exactly the rotting meat on top had been… The kid met Ayame and Teuchi Ichiraku that day when the girl found him… what was left of him… beaten to a pulp and stuffed down a garbage can to die.

Fortunately, though, Naruto survived and his genitals had eventually regenerated, though there were doubts that any children he had would be his and not offspring of the Nine-Tails. Mizuki continued past the story that had scarred him for life despite his choice of career. "He needs to know that there are already people in this shithole of a village who care for him, who see him as a person and not just an object to hate, a beast to put down. And… while it was my excuse to justify to myself doing something this stupid, I really do want to at least be allowed, on paper, to participate in the Jonin exam. I am a selfish man, Hokage-sama, but even then I'm not selfish enough or enough of an asshole to overlook the abuse heaped on our village's Demon Container. Plus… he's a fun kid to hang around with."

"And he's good at having a friend's back at bar brawls." The Third prodded, over the fact that Mizuki had eventually given up trying to fix Naruto's Academy Style Taijutsu and switched to a crude but effective style. Sadly Tsubaki had not approved of the practical training trips he'd taken the kid on a couple of times…

Mizuki grimaced "That too."

Hiruzen decided to use the blunt diplomacy Naruto was good at. It could potentially have prevented the Uchiha Massacre if he'd just dragged Fugaku and his clan out to a public forum to address their concerns and negotiate a compromise, so he was working on learning to use it right. "Mizuki, I know you meant well, and that you could have tried to run off to, say, Orochimaru with the Scroll. However, I must still punish you for a truly heinous crime."

"Sire, I have done nothing wrong, Naruto figured out his secret himself, and afterward I could speak of it before him as all those present knew it, and I merely helped our Demon Container in reaching his potential by ensuring he graduated the Academy reasonably on time. I did not expect him to actually succeed, but was hoping you might use his audacity to let him learn a good high-chakra Clone Technique anyhow. If he did succeed then I was ready to put on a performance with Iruka to help his flight risk problem, and even if he did not I had alternative plans to help the boy."

"You should have chosen law as a profession instead."

Mizuki held up a finger "Hokage-sama, I request permission to take a shower before we continue, for you have suggested I am fit for the filthy and heinous profession of being a lawyer."

Sarutobi chuckled "Or a comedian, you learnt from Naruto?"

"Indeed, a lesson from Naruto. How that kid recovered from that incident and the ones before that… I'll never know, but I suppose that's one good thing his tenant has done for this village…"

"Your punishment for unleashing Naruto to the nth power upon the village is to take whole or majority responsibility for cleaning up after every single one of his messes until he becomes Chunin. If it is truly big enough, you will be paid reasonably, depending on completion timeframe and other factors." Hiruzen had just verbally demonstrated to a paling Mizuki some of where Orochimaru may have learnt his sadism from.

(Years later, after Nagato, Mizuki would ask the Third exactly how he was to take the majority of responsibility in cleaning up a gigantic crater that was pretty much where Konoha had once been, and how much he would be paid for it, becuase it was "one of Naruto's messes".)

"Oh, and sorry, Mizuki, but we can't let you take the Jonin exam until Naruto manages to make a name for himself as the Orange Swarm, because of just how much the Council will shit themselves when they hear that you led to him learning the Shadow Clone. I will of course prevent them from trying to execute you, but you'll be behind bars for a week or so, just to shut them up a bit… It will be a relatively long D-rank mission… to silence an army of banshees."

"Sire, you're not talking about Mebuki Haruno, right? I'm reasonably sure her daughter is going to be great at blunt force techniques, including sound blasts, if she can snap out of being a fan-girl. That's a gift, so please don't refer to my student as a banshee?"

"You have shown yourself to be a good man and good ninja, Chunin Toji Mizuki, keep it up and we can see about the Jonin exam in a couple years… because it doesn't sound like you're eager to stop working at the Academy."

"It's always been more of the principle of the choice for me than actual desire to be a Jonin, Hokage-sama."

"Hah! Well, I hope you enjoy sharpening your weapons after this stunt…" Hiruzen held in his desire to threaten the man with execution by being fucked to death by a Nine-Tails Chakra overdosed girlfriend if Naruto went nuts on the village with Shadow Clones and killed too many people with heart attacks… or with sex due to Nine-Tails Chakra leakage. Well, she was his ex-girlfriend for now but Hiruzen would be astounded if Tsubaki Ono didn't seize him back as soon as possible after hearing of his generous deed. He suspected that recovered relationship would last until she figured out where all the Narutos turning the village into a glorified circus came from. On the other hand, if he stuffed Naruto toward Kakashi… maybe the man would lighten up once Konoha acquired an orange and blue tent over a good chunk of the village randomly one day?

Then of course there was the fact that the less seriously other countries took their ninja, the better for them, as long as customers kept coming. A circus tent might be just what they needed… Well, Hiruzen would see what Naruto might pull off, sooner or later… Hopefully it would involve inventing a device to do paperwork quickly…

* * *

Next Chapter: I Can Has "I Win" Button?

* * *

 **A/N:** In the unlikely event you have not realized yet, this fic is almost pure crack. Expect Kurenai's eyes to morph, along with other bullshit events.

REVIEW!


	6. We Come In Peace

**A/N:** Despite Naruto's lynchings (as per the one-shot "Ramen Uber Alles" which describes one such event…) Hiruzen is still sure that Iwa and Kumo are more dangerous than even the worst of the Konoha villagers. In other news, with time and plot progression, the Coalition vacationers will see why it's not a good idea to lend help to an obsessed lunatic (Hinata).

 **I made a grave mistake: I put guns as existing in the Naruto world (it is NOT a complex concept to put an object in front of an explosion, and to use a sealed metal tube to channel the blast and direct the object).** In actuality guns would render the entire Ninja world obsolete in about a second. However, I will put some big, BIG limitations on this (Kaguya "suppressed" the re-invention of firearms, to say the least… and also note, say, China, where firearms didn't gain primacy until late Ming at best, and then got rolled back greatly by the Manchus). Another mistake of mine may be making Hiashi not in fact an asshole for plot purposes.

Curses over looking up Japanese school year end date instead of checking canon Naruto… oh well, I can't imagine Naruto taking 7 months to ask for a mission over D-rank, so I'll compress that part of the timeline a bit… and change Kakashi's reasoning for continuing the mission.

* * *

Chapter 6: We Come In Peace

 _Roanoke Abyss, early hours of November 1, 3849 AD_

 _Equivalent to March 26, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

The Byakugan Princess had spent most of the afternoon playing (read: studying) the commercial ACU piloting simulator games, feeling her way around and checking the various uses of units. They weren't as good as the actual ACU trainer systems, but were "pretty damned close"… now that she thought about it, Hannah was a bit Anko-like in bluntness, but she had straight hair almost as long as Kurenai-sensei's mane. Speaking of Kurenai-sensei… hopefully Hinata would be assigned to her Genin team…

Though she was tired from a day of touring gigantic war machines capable of what, to the Ninja world, might qualify as nearly unimaginable destruction and learning about the general deployment patterns of ACU warfare, Hinata lost all sense of fatigue once she stepped out onto the balcony of the suite that had been lent to her. She'd come out to look at the unfamiliar stars, and found herself staring across the gap between two apartment blocks to where one Hannah Shepard was leaning against the wall, with her brunette husband between her legs and their bodies pressed tightly to one another. Were these Coalition people as shameless as to… she couldn't even say it… where anyone could see them? Her Byakugan activated without even meaning to, for some reason… oh…

With how the woman had long, dark hair, and the man had lighter hair (though brown and not blonde), she could fantasize that Naruto might share such an embrace with herself at some point, though she doubted she'd grow to be taller than him. But… they weren't having sex as she'd thought they might be… which was nice, because she'd probably have fainted thinking of Naruto-kun and herself having… Wait… that was a problem, a big problem. Unless Naruto was into fucking sleeping girls then Hinata really needed to get over her fainting if she wanted to have a real chance with him.

 _Mm… being sleep-fucked by Naruto-kun sounds interesting…Eep!_ She stuffed that traitorous and shameless part of her mind away, but she still couldn't pull her eyes away from the two who were enjoying their private time with each other off-duty in the cool night breeze, talking to each other, holding each other close. It was a little odd to see the male be the shorter one, with his mouth at the right level to nestle into his wife's collarbone or neck, but the scene was still adorable in Hinata's opinion. The couple shared a laugh over something, and then separated far enough for Fran to run his hands over Hannah's belly in what seemed to Hinata like a tender caress… was she pregnant?

…Blink, blink…

Oh… um… OH!

Reading Icha-Icha in secret had nothing on watching first-hand…

Wow, that looked good…

…

…Wait, the guy's mostly in an Aeon Illuminate colour scheme…

* * *

"Is our little guest watching?" Fran asked his wife, whose facial circuits glowed momentarily in a pattern that looked like a Y, for yes.

"She's too shy as a ninja, if those tools she had on her were any indication of what profession she has in that imitation Japan she came from. Giving her a show would help her, I think, and also make us seem less like gods compared to their tech and genetic level." Hannah whispered back. "Besides, she can't complain since she isn't supposed to be peeping anyhow, or using those eyes to peep, I suspect."

"Are you sure? Because thinking about it is making me awfully excited…" The brunette man's hand slipped between them as he pulled back slightly, tickling down and across his wife's belly, before finally making its way lower.

Given his reputation and being on thin ice with his superiors for most of his career due to having a stupidly low kill to encountered civilian ratio… Hannah shrugged and smiled at him. "Why not? I doubt you had the chance to try exhibitionism before… and that girl's genetics make me feel inadequate." She grinned suggestively.

Fran was confused and looked into his wife's eyes with a frown "I thought you dealt with the breast envy problem after that first time Ariel took her armour off in your vicinity?" Hannah had what, in his opinion, were the best breasts (no, not "ones you're allowed to touch", why would you ever think that…) among women he knew, enough to play with but not enough to risk suffocation. Ariel's hugs were dangerous to one's health sometimes…

"The girl's going to end up with chest melons comparably to Ariel's, if her genetic readings are correct and she's fed properly. She's already close to my size, ugh…" Hannah grumbled.

To shut her up from her current bout of stupidity, Fran pulled her panties aside and his pants down far enough, followed by one deft movement that formally made Hinata officially experienced in voyeurism. This act was done specifically where structural fields didn't block her eye ability, and had the aim of making her less shy by repeated exposure, followed by self-acceptance as a voyeur. Having a wallflower as a liaison was good in some ways in that they were less likely to become a parasite that had to be disposed of, but also very bad in others where there would be pressure on her. Given how timid the girl had acted during the tours and subsequent crash course in the general workings of ACU armies… that needed fixing.

Then again, having sex on the floor while Hinata was unconscious on the bed Fran had lent her, slumped against the headboard to reduce choking risk, was a bit over the top ("Really, Xav? It took you over 300 years to figure out that you have an exhibitionism fetish? Well… okay…mm… she could stand to lose a lot of that timidity anyhow, if she happens to wake up on us… ugh… push a bit harder… no, a little less than that… perfect… mm…"). This was after they made sure the timid girl wasn't going to drown in her nosebleed while slumped on Fran's balcony, having passed out just after Hannah's first orgasm of the night. The two Coalition commanders had hastily pulled their clothes back together and rushed over to make sure that the girl wouldn't inhale any blood. As a side note, Xavier Fran ("please don't call me by my full name, it makes me feel sick at the sound") only half-pretended to be offended when Hannah joked with him that his skill was one of the things that made her propose to him. Of course, they aired out the room so as to not have the unconscious girl awake to the overwhelming smell of sex.

Unfortunately for all involved, Hinata had her Byakugan active the moment she woke up, and spotted some of the less than wholesome toys in the drawers of the suite that "Xav" had lent to her for the duration of her stay. Due to the lack of a structural field on the drawers, they had not been Byakugan-proof. He'd forgotten to have the toys discarded before she showed up, to be written off in nanolathe credit cost as official expenses accommodating a foreign diplomat. In a post-scarcity society, the one thing that really had value was people's time, which meant a monetary system still existed, almost purely for luxury or unique goods, or entertainment services… though anyone who didn't want to eat processed nutrient sludge also needed money for groceries since food couldn't be nanolathed well.

They moved her to a different room before waking her again, with Fran's green Aeon armour very conspicuously absent. This succeeded, because it wasn't seeing the sex that had knocked Hinata out last night, though thinking of herself entwined with Naruto like that had caused the nosebleed for some biologically odd reason unique to her planet. The unconsciousness was a sanity preserver from noticing that Fran's outfit was mostly green, and imagining a certain Green Beast of Konoha turning out to be an exhibitionist. She was lucky that she hadn't puked, choked stomach acid into her lungs, and died (however briefly) from that… not to mention needed lung repair/replacement surgery.

…

…The narrator would like to remind the audience that historical veracity comes before any manner of disgust, so we have Coalition Historicity Protection laws restricting political correctness complaints. The narrator also notes that Kakashi Hatake should never be allowed to read the above paragraph for personal health reasons. On the other hand Might Guy (Maito Gai in the language of their world, in Romaji) should never be allowed to read the above for _public_ health reasons.

The inhabitants of Konoha should note that there was already a classified edict in place for the unlikely event of that coming to pass. Anyone who converts Guy to the practice of exhibitionism was to be sentenced equally to anyone who teaches Naruto Sealing skills without authorization or sells him supplies to let him practice without supervision.

That had a story behind it too. The seals discovered to litter the Uchiha District after the Massacre were the result of the kid going nuts with a prank, and thus far no one had figured them out. There were whispers though that they had been what induced Itachi to go nuts, and Inoichi had to risk his life diving into Naruto's mind to check. He'd found the Nine-Tailed Fox cowering in the furthest corner of its cage whimpering about lunatic blondes, and proceeded to remove Naruto's memories of coming across a seals textbook. The kid only half-remembered what he had read, and had grossly misapplied it somehow—the memories there were unclear, almost as if he'd been drunk. As a side note the Uchiha District was still a ghost town… and a popular tourist attraction because of the spookiness.

The Hokage wouldn't remember that Toji Mizuki admitted that he was the one to take Naruto on bar crawls as Taijutsu training until later, _much_ later. It seemed the blonde brat had been more curious about the drinks during Mizuki-sensei's frequent bathroom breaks—bringing several bottles of water to pretend to have drinks at bars while looking for practical training in brawling was a pain in several ways—than had been legal. One thing followed another after a particular training session ended…

Now, as to why the Aeon and Cybran married couple had separate suites, well, it was a matter of factional politics, since the Elite Four's standard squadron nowadays had five people, with two Aeon commanders and one from each of the other factions. If another Cybran was brought in then Hannah could shack up formally with her husband without making the Cybran Nation seem under-represented. There was also the fact that many Cybrans were very vocally concerned about one of their best prodigies being "compromised" by Aeon Psionics, which Xavier Fran was exceedingly good at. The foolish masses ignored the fact that all habitations and combat units projected Psi Suppression Fields by default… though admittedly they were deactivated right now

They also ignored the minor fact that despite his civilian kill count of ten billion, Xavier Fran was infamous as having among the lowest civilian kill to encounter ratios of any ACU pilot who had served for more than five years. He had fought for over three hundred years by now, and that should really have made the Cybran masses know better. The Cybran Nation was after all the faction of rationality and logic… or was supposed to be such at least, now if they could accept the first Cybran-Aeon couple to ever exist, that would be just great…

* * *

 _Later that morning…_

"Well, they've finally completed the trace, it seems it wasn't inter-universal this time, not even intergalactic… we can gate to your world at any time now. Hinata, here's a globe of the survey data our probes sent to your system have sent back, please identify where on the planet your home continent is, and we can zoom in and you can identify the general area of your home village." Ariel informed the young girl, since she seemed to gain a full-body flush whenever she looked at Hannah or Fran for some reason. Most likely the two had been too adventurous where Hinata could see them to try to wear down her timidity… you'd think a man over age 300—making him one of the older surviving humans after the Seraphim War—would know better…

Hinata got the distinct feeling they might not know she understood planets were roughly spherical since they seemed to be waiting for a reaction… which she wasn't giving them as the Elemental Nations were aware that the world was round. "Um, the Elemental Nations are here…" This globe showed that the continents were all big islands, scattered over the planet. The Elemental Nations occupied the biggest continent, with the western mountains of the continent creating the very arid climate of most of the Land of Earth and Land of Wind by rain shadow. Hinata had not even heard of maps showing the other continents though… Probably at least a few of them were where the various summons came from, but she was still curious about the possibility that the contact with the Coalition brought…

Unbeknownst to her, there was contact between the human-inhabited continents, but they were all relatively insular and isolated from one another.

Ariel nodded and zoomed in "Alright, then… the identified population centers of the region are lighting up now, please narrow the area down a bit further so that we don't have to gate in and spend hours crossing territory after setting up a base."

Hinata did as she was instructed. "Okay, we've identified a good LZ, Hannah, Fran, Hackett and Seth are gating now. You and I will follow once a local Quantum Gate is established, as there isn't enough time to put up an Orbital Gate if we want to make contact today."

* * *

 _30 km South of Konoha, Morning of March 26, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

There were no inhabitants of the lush forested area for several kilometers. This was good, because about half a kilometer radius of forest was flattened and caught fire around where the four Quantum Gate arrivals had shown up. They'd taken no damage from buffeting one another with their arrival wakes, but such was the wonder of Structural Integrity Fields.

* * *

 _Konoha, same time_

Tenzo (As he told Kakashi: "What do you mean having one's codename in ANBU being the same as one's own chosen first name was stupid? No one would ever think of it!") blinked in the middle of his breakfast, then looked to the south. "I sense a great disturbance, as if a thousand trees cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced…" He shrugged, it was probably just another missing-ninja being apprehended and some wide-area Ninjutsu being thrown around… though he'd still tell the Hokage later, after breakfast.

* * *

 _Where the Coalition squad was…_

There was currently still no system where ACU pilots could link resource pools due to the complexities of the secure battle network system. Therefore one of them—Hannah by rock-paper-scissors before the mission—initiated buildings and the other pilots completed the outer structural elements—the parts that were not sensitive, classified technology, the parts that weren't incinerated in a self-destruct—with their ACUs' resources. This allowed a faster build order than would otherwise be possible, as about 90% of every unit or building was mass that would be left over after destruction, with 10% being slag from destroyed secret technologies pointing to 80% being unclassified materials. This meant Hannah only had to finish 20% of each building with Cybran engineering units, including her ACU. However, the others had to put up a few power generators of their own to empty out their resource pools evenly instead of having a lot of leftover mass.

Hannah set her first two Tier 1 engineers to work on putting up a hydrocarbon power plant. Hydrocarbon deposits were still a viable energy source even in the 3800s if used in sufficient quantity. This use did not affect the environment very much as they usually deactivated by default once a commander had Tier 3 generators up and running, which typically took less than an hour, and most planets had long carbon cycles that removed carbon dioxide from their atmospheres over time. The exception to the shutdown was on snowball worlds which could really use some warming, and in emergencies where a power deficit was run. The next couple of engineers would simply roll their way through the forest to outlying mass deposits further away from the main base she was erecting. After sending more engineers to reclaim the felled trees for mass, she sent out Moles (Cybran Tier 1 Land Scout) in every direction, despite even the distant villages of locals being completely visible, with every person in them detectable, already. Then she churned out a small platoon of Mantis Assault Bots and Sky Slammers from her Land Factory just in case as a patrol squad.

The four ACUs all poured their resource generation and engineering suites into bringing the Land Factory up to Tier 2. Then she scrambled up the tiers in land and air units. After upgrading to a Tier 3 base and an adequate Tier 3 perimeter force, Hannah tasked her forces to aid the others in building their own bases nearby. Her legions of engineers funnelled her resources into helping the other ACUs upgrade their engineering suites. This very quickly set up their Tier 3 economies by finishing the economy buildings the other pilots and their engineers laid down or, often, finished off due to the number of assisting Cybran engineers. Then they assisted the others' factories in upgrading to Tier 3 and pumping out Engineers. In the meantime, Hannah's Loyalists and Bangers patrolled around the several kilometers of perimeter on the ground and her Geminis and Corsairs covered the growing group of bases from the air.

While they were each working on building expansion bases around nearby mass deposits, Ariel was showing Hinata four different sets of armour "These are the infantry armour styles the Coalition has devised to date, for commando strike teams. They consume far more power than they produce to keep the structural field at full strength or power the shields, so the fuel capacity as we call it is limited when it isn't drawing power from an ACU battle network, but they should be immune to most things your world could throw at you. Would you like to wear a set? The offer to you, the girl we hope will be our representative in your world, will always be open, and the other armour sets will also remain available depending on preferences."

"Um, I'd really like to earn my way through my world on my own merits…"

"I understand, that's what every youngster who isn't a spoilt brat wants… to carve their own path through the world…" Ariel chuckled and shook her head to clear it of wistfulness "We'll lend you help in other ways though, when you need it. Recognizing when one needs help is part of adulthood after all. I suppose that instead of wearing our armour, we'll have to send you in with an Honor Guard…"

Hinata had a sudden vision of two Fatboys crushing their way through Konoha following her to the Hokage Tower. "Uh, is there a mixed style armour that combines aesthetics from all four factions, to represent Coalition unity?"

Ariel grimaced "Sorry, but there isn't enough trust yet to share technologies like that. There are preliminary designs of a Civilian Armour with basic tech from all four sides working together, to improve survivability of civilians fleeing an ACU battlefield as much as we can, but the cutting-edge stuff… no. It will have to be in the style of the faction you identify closest with, because mixing and matching doesn't work."

* * *

 _An hour later…_

Iruka was having a chat with Naruto while he was being treated for his injuries. He was instructing the blonde on how the basic Clone was useful as a distraction when interspersed with other Clone types, or on a smoky or dusty battlefield when one couldn't check for the Clone's shadow easily. In addition to conserving overall chakra use, which Naruto didn't need to be too worried about, it could force opponents to unbalance themselves when attacking an illusion and finding no resistance, making them vulnerable.

Team assignments had been put off until the next day, if Hinata Hyuuga could not be found by then. If she was found, well, that would be great… Iruka discreetly wiped a little bit of blood from his nose as he thought of the fantastic body that Hinata had shown off the previous day before spamming the Replacement technique to take herself to who knows where. _I really shouldn't be thinking of students of mine like that…_

His thought was interrupted by a yell of "Oh hey, Hinata's back!"

 _Goddamn it Naruto, pay attention for more than a minute at a time for once… Hinata's back? Wow, the painkillers must really be doing a number on my reaction time to not register his words for so long._

"Nice armour, Hinata!" Naruto yelled as he noticed someone walking by outside the window.

… _What?_

The more amazing part was that, due to her expression of determination, Hinata did not react as Iruka would have expected, and instead merely yelled back "Thank you, Naruto-kun!"

… _That's even weirder than the angular, black armour!_

* * *

 _Hokage Tower (technically part of the Academy, but due to expansion, a separate building within the Academy grounds), a few minutes later_

"Hitomi, are you alright? Any injuries? Are you hungry…?" Hinata stared, apparently her abrupt disappearance had injured her father more than she'd thought. To be specific, he must have some type of brain damage as he was fussing over her like Hanabi would when she was smaller and much clingier. Why the hell was he calling her by her mother's name anyhow?

The man finally seemed to realize he was actually awake and not in fact talking to his dead wife fused with his missing daughter in a dream… and flushed deep crimson because it had been along the lines of one of their role-plays in the gist of "a bath, dinner, or me"… "Ah… AHEM…" He schooled his face into his usual impassivity with remarkable speed "it is good to see you have returned, Hinata, but what is that armour you are wearing?"

"A gift from the people I encountered when a space-time technique was cast on me by somebody I surprised."

"Did you get a good look at that person?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked as he appeared to meet the returned Academy Student. Hinata shook her head. "Well that's too bad, since space-time techniques are very restricted, it could be an infiltrator… did you go to a Summon Homeland?" The Third Hokage looked closely at the angular black armour. It was a Shadow Clone of him, as Hinata's collar display would have told her if she'd paid attention, just in case she'd been turned into a walking bomb.

"No, Hokage-sama, I was transported to another world altogether, at a place that was weak to space-time techniques. I was fortunate that there were already people there researching the phenomena, and that they rescued me before I could drown in the sea I fell into after being teleported there." Hinata stated, feeling oddly calm instead of her usual bundle of nerves. She did not know that it was due to Sarutobi having used an area calming technique to help Hiashi realize he was not in fact still asleep. Her armour had not blocked the Psi influence, as she wasn't wearing the helmet. "I woke up in a medical room and they decided that they would like me to serve as their liaison to the Elemental Nations. They led me on a tour of the various military machines they could field, which led me to understand that they had no ill intentions toward me or our world. One of these machines dropped me off a short distance outside the gates before departing. They arrived on this planet and constructed a base as of about an hour and a half ago, about thirty kilometers south of Konoha."

Sarutobi hummed in acknowledgement of this information, eyes flickering to instruct the ANBU on standby to do the obvious, which was to send scouts. They would likely take about half an hour to return from recon, if they used the Body Flicker as much as they could as a mission of this urgency required. Free Running through the forest canopy would typically be about forty kilometers an hour, but the Body Flicker was much, much faster.

"How can you be sure that they have no ill intentions?" Hiashi prodded, though he had a good inkling if the glance he gave Sarutobi was any indication.

"They have enough technology to burn our world to ash within a week, and then rebuild it to habitability within a few years. If they wanted to hurt us they wouldn't need to have bothered with giving me this armour, or even making contact with me. They could have traced the space-time technique's energy signature to find this world, and attacked from out of nowhere." Hinata felt weird, since she never normally spoke with nearly this much force near her father. Then again, being almost forced into the position of representing such a power, and preventing her world from doing anything dumb enough to provoke them into hostilities, was a big job. There was no way she'd let her sister die just because a few terrified old men couldn't adapt to a new reality glaring them in the face… just as there was no way Hanabi would get the Caged Bird Seal… that might be a problem she had to consult with the Coalition for "One moment, I'm getting a message… they would like to address you directly."

A handsome young man popped up as a hologram broadcast from the Cybran symbol on the front of the matte black armour "Hello, I am Steven Hackett, one of five members on this expedition representing the Coalition, we would like to make peaceful contact with the local civilization. We expect it to take many years of intermittent, distant contact before we can begin cultural tourism and trading for cultural products from this planet, hence the choice of requesting a local act as our liaison. She wanted to come in her original clothes, but, well, to prove that she's actually affiliated with us and not just having had a fever dream, we would have had to send an honor guard of units, and she thought that was a bad idea. We had no wish to alarm anyone by sending some of our heavier units to ask what happened to our representative if she was thrown in interrogation. With me are three other representatives, one for each faction of the Coalition. We come in peace. Hinata, please give us a call when your side is ready to discuss further, and don't forget that we said we would aid you, Hinata, personally if it is reasonable. Call us whenever you wish to speak." The hologram disappeared, and Hinata suddenly felt very small as everyone stared at her and Sarutobi released his calming technique.

"What counts as reasonable?" Hiruzen asked.

"Uh… sorry, Hokage-sama, I'm not supposed to disclose the specifics, in the hopes of a fairly slow exposure over time to their might, and for them to observe how a typical life on this planet might work, despite me being a clan heiress and thus not all that typical… They don't want to make anyone make panicked, stupid decisions. It has to be morally reasonable by their judgement, and at my sole request…" She looked her father in the eye thinking about moral issues "Father, we need to uncage the bird, as soon as possible, because the Cybran Nation, one of the four Coalition factions, would probably go nuts if we consciously let it drag on too long. We need to do it while keeping this secret from the Clan Elders in case they are dumb enough to go after Hanabi before the Coalition units get here." Then Hinata began to tell them of some of the history of the Coalition… and both Hiruzen and Hiashi had to sit down at the mention of twelve hundred years of ceaseless war over thousands of worlds, and five trillion deaths.

* * *

 **A/N:** Review replies (for some reason I can only see the first 2 reviews so this reply section for the third and fourth guy lacks the third guy's name)!

 **The guy who talked about chapter 4 being a massive info dump** : You do realize telling someone from the Naruto universe that a machine several floors tall shooting shells that are at least 20 centimeters (about 8 inches) across is the weakest combat vehicle the Coalition has is _pretty damned important_ , right? Also, the connection between the Residual Energy Signature Othuy and Tailed Beasts? What does that say about the Experimental Phason Pulse Generator which shoots… a ball of energy (e.g. analogous to the Tailed Beast Ball)?

 **Uzukage-of-the-Storm** : Thank you for reviewing! I think this is going to be a learning experience for both sides, the Coalition will learn new methods of using Psi energy (having suppressors built almost everywhere doesn't help development in the UEF and Cybran Nation), and the Naruto world will start appreciating technological progress more and trying to figure out why their own guns never improved. They will also have the whole show turned from serious mode Sasuke-blowjobs to hilarious easy-mode stuff (just wait until Wave…) For example, the first strategic bomber strike might accidentally level several square kilometers of forest because "Ah crap I turned containment field projection off!"

REVIEW PLEASE!


	7. They Are People, Like Us

A/N: Gai/Guy's name will be spelled interchangeably, usually with locals using Romaji and Coalition-affiliated ones using Romanization.

Counting actual 3849-modern INFANTRY armour (instead of ACU Pilot Armour where the boots are basically just everyday shoes) Hannah goes from 195cm (192-193cm barefoot) to over 2 meters tall. **Killer B is 192cm tall, so Hannah about on par with Killer B when barefoot, and Ariel is a little bit taller**. Obviously Naruto anime/manga exaggerated the size differences between people, but the point remains that these are **BIG** LADIES. **"Bigger moms, smaller babies" was the most foolproof way to make childbirth safer** after all… an approach most animals have taken to increase reproductive success, as bigger females = more eggs, whereas sperm are cheap enough for even tiny males to make enough of.

This by the way explains the death rate of kunoichi in childbirth, because training from a young age stresses the body and stunts growth in a way that, to say the least, results in usually not getting as large as they could have. Remember that early humans had much tinier females and higher unassisted maternal death rates than now with larger females… Stress really kills!

* * *

Chapter 7: They Are People, Like Us

 _March 26, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

"So, Kakashi, Hiashi? Are you contemplating what I am contemplating?" Hiruzen had sent Hinata home after the debrief to reassure the rest of the Hyuuga Clan, though she was to come back after lunch at the latest, when they convened the Jonin that led the teams Hinata would be most likely to work with, namely Kurenai, Kakashi, Asuma and Gai. Others could be brought in on the secret as needed. The ANBU team sent to scout had returned with the report of having been confronted by a group of golem-like patrolling machines several kilometers short of their original target and loudly told by speakers on the machines to note the size of the cleared area of forest, that this was the location of an outlying expansion base, and that they really shouldn't go further since there were too many units rolling around and if they jumped in front of one they couldn't see while it was marching around on patrol… that would be bad, diplomatically.

"The number of bricks the Council will shit when they learn of Hinata suddenly bringing such powerful prospective allies?" Kakashi suggested, for once being completely serious.

Hiruzen snorted "I was thinking more along the probability that the Council gets us all killed by panicking and being hostile to this Coalition, but that comes after them shitting bricks, so I suppose we thought the same. I suppose we will just have to act as if everything's normal, but advise them on how to flag the bases they build, nearby or otherwise, as restricted areas, to make sure neither our nor any other village's ninja show aggression… I'll have to send Danzo a notice on the matter in case his lackeys decide to be stupid… would be bad if they were provoked into blasting craters in Konoha wherever his ROOT bases are, given the size of their smallest and weakest combat unit other than infantry…" Sarutobi wasn't stupid, he knew Danzo didn't really disband ROOT, but at least the number of ROOT operatives was kept in check this way, and sometimes Danzo DID spot something that Hiruzen didn't.

ROOT also brought in a LOT of money, which had been _exceedingly_ useful in repairing the damage from the Third Ninja World War and more so for the aftermath of the Nine-Tails Attack. There was also the concern of dealing with the morale of the regular ninja force if ROOT agents were assimilated into them, because the Will of Fire depended on morale and moral advantage to a great extent. When people felt they were fighting not only for themselves and their own interest, but also as part of something greater than themselves, something righteous and superior to the other guy's reason to fight, there laid some measure of strength. And in ninja combat, all too often the smallest measure of strength, of unity, could tip the scales.

Tearing open the façade and exposing Konoha's sins to the world, as Hiruzen was sure Danzo had contingency plans for just as life insurance, would depress that morale, hugely. Unless they could afford to spend a year or two getting over it while sending ninja on less than their level of missions, among other things, ROOT wouldn't be uprooted until the day Danzo died of old age. The old war hawk would probably not activate his life insurance if he died naturally, since deep down Hiruzen was still reasonably sure he was a Konoha fanatic. But if he did… well… that was why Hiruzen was still hanging onto the hat until an appropriate generation of legends could be groomed to handle the aftermath.

Hinata returned oddly quickly, long before the Jonin-sensei were to show up. This gave Hiashi the chance to lose his composure for the second time in an hour, because _how the hell did she get away from the Elders that fast with that exotic armour? Even if they didn't question the armour too much, at the very least her grandfather would probably have clung to her like a limpet for half an hour. I remember too well how we had to pry his wailing, drunk form off Neji a couple times in the first few days after Hizashi died, before he suffocated the boy by accident…_ He didn't know that Hinata had physically towed her grandfather around with trivial ease thanks to the power armour around the Compound while the man blubbered away.

The man was the Branch House's favourite elder since he was a family-obsessed nut and was known to badly beat (rarely by Drunken Fist, on days such as the anniversaries of Hizashi's death) anyone who actually tried activating the Caged Bird Seal on a family member barring self-defence. Hiashi only wished that his father had been so kind as to use Drunken Fist after that one time Hizashi had glared at Hinata with hostility after Neji was sealed and he prodded his twin's curse mark for it. Going out shopping had been ominous enough… but coming back with a paddle gift-wrapped for Hitomi and telling her about what her exceedingly stupid husband had done to deserve a spanking… the man must have been a sadist. Of course Hiashi's father was also a masochist given he'd beaten himself up literally after learning he'd blabbed Neji and Hinata into mental ruts by accident on one particular anniversary of Hizashi's death, but maybe having a crazy father was why Hiashi was consistently confused and scare-roused by his wife before her untimely death. Then again Hitomi's reputation and mental scarring capacity had been considered on par with Mikoto Uchiha and second only to Uzumaki Kushina, all from the same demented Genin team… That in turn might have something to do with how most of the Elders really wanted Hinata sealed as soon as possible. The girl looked a lot like her mother… but more dangerously had Hitomi's usual all-loving personality. This put her at exceedingly high risk of turning out to be a bipolar avatar of death.

Hinata's quick return gave Hiruzen a chance to ask about the bipedal machines the scouts had reported, without Hinata's sensei or her not-so-secret boyfriend present. Hinata fiddled around with her holographic computer interface for a moment, before… "Golem-like… let me think… uh… does the description match this?" She brought up a hologram of a Mech Marine.

"Indeed, Hinata-sama." One of the ninja who the ANBU had allowed to tag along on the missions reported. Uzuki Yugao was familiar enough with Kurenai to know Hinata, and through her know of her frequent babysitter Kou Hyuuga, so when the overeager Hyuuga pacing outside the Hokage Tower had tagged along asking if he could come, since it involved Hinata—how he heard that so soon Yugao didn't know… never mind, the gossip machine traveled faster than light—she'd agreed because it was good to get a Byakugan on the team.

"It is good to be back, Kou. They must have deactivated the Active Camouflage on their outermost perimeter patrol units to make sure that you didn't accidentally run into anything face-first, even if it stopped moving to avoid ramming you, in case no one came with a Byakugan. This is a Tech 1 Light Assault Bot, representing the technology and aesthetics of the United Earth Federation and standing only about three storeys tall. The Light Assault Bots are the lightest and weakest dedicated combat unit the UEF fields, which is kind of surprising as Hackett should have Titans and Percivals on patrol already, even around outlying bases…" Hinata said, frowning. "I think he just didn't want to cause anyone any undue alarm… that might also be part of why he called dibs on the outer expansion areas to the north of their main base, to ensure Konoha scouts are presented with somewhat less alien-looking or dark and menacing aesthetics on first encounter."

"But it ran toward us at something around seventy-five meters a second despite its size, and it was no illusion either!" Kou clearly didn't understand that there were technologies and powers far beyond the imagination of most ninja.

Hinata blinked, that was a pretty good estimate… "Full speed for a Light Assault Bot is eighty meters per second… regardless of terrain." She corrected. "They are the Tier 1 pursuit and raiding unit of the Coalition armies, among other purposes."

Kou gaped, then clarified "No, I mean if they weren't looking to cause alarm it could have run a little slower!"

"Oh… well… uh… I guess Hackett didn't set them to move slowly…" Hinata shrugged, making Hiashi shiver at her already showing a telltale phase of every one of her mother's transitions from demure all-loving saint to tailed beast in disguise, that of steadfast impassiveness. She wanted to mention that the slowest Coalition vehicle was the Scathis, which moved at 20 meters per second, or 72 kilometers per hour top speed, both on land and at sea, but the sheer weight and power of that would probably break some minds…

"Your lack of detail on the technologies was probably good for my heart, if that's the weakest combat unit they field." Hiruzen observed. "I did not expect you to return nearly so quickly though… shall we go to lunch then?"

"Well, I kind of scared grandfather into being catatonic when I told him about the problem with the Caged Bird Seal relative to my new friends… who can burn a planet to ash within a day if they felt like it. Thus I was able to get him off me faster, about halfway through checking in with everyone, than merely dragging him around the Compound would have done." The previous Hyuuga Clan Head's family man tendencies were a well-kept clan secret. His popularity combined with the strength of his faction meant the dominant faction among the Clan Elders couldn't get rid of him in any way.

In the midst of preparing himself for his ninja registration photo, Uzumaki Naruto shivered as if his very soul was trembling in terror at the prospect of future violation. Sadly for him and for the world, Hyuuga Hinata had just partly awoken to the thrill of frightening disturbing, dismaying, or otherwise discomforting people. The worst part was that she would do so with facts, and facts alone.

* * *

 **A/N:** The Snoop has a gun which looks like a 200mm cannon in in-game scale. It does 2 damage per shot. The Mech Marine has two guns by the same name (so same general mechanisms) doing 7 damage per shot. 3.5 times as much damage is more than that many times firepower by my scaling system. 40 kilotons TNT-equivalent energy directed into the target is 6000 damage so that's 3000 times the damage of a 200mm shell which has like a hundred kilograms TNT-e in energy at best even in this tech era given the SLOW velocity of only about 400 m/s for stealth reasons. So 800,000 times firepower, accounting for the directed energy issue, is 3000 times the damage to structural fields. Think about this for a moment. About 6-8 times as much explosive plus kinetic power as a 200mm shell would be… something on the order of a 350-400mm shell. **This is actually sane and reasonable according to the scale of the units' guns in-game, the Mech Marine's barrel openings really do look at least twice the diameter of the Snoop's!**

A lowly Mech Marine fires 350-400mm slugs, all high explosive squash head (as armor-piercing is pretty much nullified by a structural fields and more difficult to nanolathe in replenishing ammo), at or over 300-some m/s, at a rate of 3 shots per second (1.5 per second per arm). Think about this shell calibre. The amount of explosive should be about enough to dig out a crater about 40-50 meters across… except for the fact that as basically a chunk of hurled explosives and at a very shallow angle it would not pierce enough into the soil to do that. Oh, and yes, the technologies in units might let a unit be hurled in combat, but they'll help maintain orientation.

Now, the Snoop has a longer gun barrel relative to calibre, and higher range, so let's suppose it fires its slug faster… The ammunition nanolathing system… I'll have to make mass extractors relatively expensive to make this logical, in the sense that units don't serve as mass fabricators because to include secure material transmission systems would be so expensive in mass/energy cost that it just wouldn't work, and the actual production rates of mass/energy from unit reactors aren't nearly high enough to be worthwhile… **Bleh, I'll just have units fighting gather their ammunition mass from, say, the dirt under them, while fighting.**

* * *

 _Ichiraku Ramen, a short time later…_

"Yo!" Hinata stiffened at that voice, so did the ANBU at it being a stranger's voice without a visible source.

"Hannah?" She looked around, then remembered to activate her Byakugan… still nothing…

There was a chuckle from thin air "Relax, this is just a sex doll stuffed in a Cybran Infantry Armour set. I'm getting sensory feeds from it and using it as an avatar. I originally bought this and remodelled it to look like me to troll people. It'll probably be years before I get gutsy enough to use it for the purpose it was originally designed for, which is to have an orgy with fewer real participants than typically required." The ANBU, Hokage, Hiashi and Kakashi were all looking at the stool next to Hinata, which was where the voice was coming from, though none of them sensed anything besides the sound… "Speaking of which, it would be nice if I could get a test of the typical strength of trained people in this world, so please feel free to throw things at my avatar's head once I drop cloaking, consider it restitution for sneaking up on you all." Unsurprisingly, when the doll that was mentioned materialized next to them, no one so much as threw a shuriken, only disappointed looks for suggesting such a stupid thing.

…

"…Uh, are you SURE that's a sex doll and not actually you?" Hinata asked, since she couldn't see—or feel, now that she reached out and felt what seemed to be warm flesh, there was even a pulse…—any indication to that effect other than the woman's claim, and the fact that she wasn't wearing her helmet, yet had suggested people throw things at her head. On the other hand, the fact that she was looking over the armour set—with only Cybran logos instead of all four factions like Hinata's—led the Coalition woman to be reminded of her… inadequacy. The reminder came mostly as when she'd bought the doll they simply didn't have options for sizes as small as hers, without going into their loli products… which completely failed to represent her in height and mass.

"Please do not point out the fact that I am barely more stacked than a rather short twelve-year-old." She said past Hinata, at the adult males present who weren't fully masked (i.e. not ANBU), all of whom were considerably shorter than she was. Even the tallest among the three, Kakashi, at 181 centimeters standing—as he was now after being surprised—was almost a hand-span or so (20 centimeters) shorter than the Cybran when she had her boots but not helmet (which added even more). Hiashi's 176.5 cm and Sarutobi's 163.1 cm frames seemed almost dwarfish in comparison. "I am sensitive about the issue of breast envy. We are mostly here to observe and make gradual contact with your civilization… so, on that note, I am Hannah Shepard, representing the Cybran Nation. It is a pleasure to meet you." She extended her hand and Hiruzen shook it, then she shook Kakashi's hand.

Both men introduced themselves as the avatar shook their hands.

Then she retracted her hand instead of shaking Hiashi's hand. "I won't shake hands with you, Hyuuga clan head, for reasons that I'm sure Hinata has made clear enough. The Cybran Nation's view on slavery regardless of all glorifications is very, very dim indeed. Don't feel too pressured though, we aren't insisting you do anything…" She frowned and scratched her scalp "though I admit that sounds condescending, in the sense that someone doesn't insist the blades of grass on their lawn do anything… I'm not very good at this diplomacy thing, as you can see."

"You're good at comedy." Hiashi and Kakashi both noted, then looked at each other in surprise.

Hannah smirked "Why thank you."

"Kakashi, kindly do not use sign language if possible in front of a diplomatic guest, especially something that literally reads 'where your pole up behind'. And Hiashi, single-fingered sign language in response is also unnecessary." Sarutobi stopped the two who had been staring (and were now glaring) at each other for having noted the same thing earlier at the same time. Then the two seemed to realize what they were doing and both facepalmed.

"I'm guessing life is normally less facepalm-worthy lame in comedy around here?" Hannah asked

Sarutobi nodded "Yes, but I suppose we're all a bit jittery at suddenly feeling very small and insignificant."

She waved it off "Perfectly understandable, so… you should have lunch! Wasn't there going to be a meeting after lunch for Hinata-chan and the team leaders she's likely to work with?"

"I'm guessing you heard through her armour?" Hiruzen said.

Hannah shrugged "Yeah, although we'd kindly ask you to not experiment on it, in terms of materials science and such."

Hiruzen chuckled at the non-request, and waved Teuchi over to make his order.

Meanwhile Hannah was pawing at her hair some more "Oh hey the sensation feedback from putting on that sensory relay suit is really realistic from this doll… a good purchase, I guess, for these occasions, better than those skeleton-like avatars some people use…"

No one asked for more information on the alternative avatar choices, because they strongly suspected they didn't want to, or need to, know. An attractive young woman's face was certainly better to negotiate with than a skeletal robot. So, the humans present (except ANBU) ate their meals in silence, while Hannah toggled the sensory feed and the full mental commands of the sex doll off, putting it on simple remote control. While running a separate thought thread wasn't difficult for a Cybran, running her bases was still more important, along with…

"Hey, Hackett, when the hell did you get a Support Commander assigned to your operational group?" Ariel Williams, who'd taken over the Aeon side of the joint expedition from Fran in the game if gender balance, asked first, before Hannah had the chance.

Steven Hackett shrugged "Well the higher-ups felt there were too many Aeon on the Elite Four Battle Squadron to not assign me an SCU pilot. Meet David Anderson, everyone!"

"Well I'll have to send Dostya a message that any SCU pilot sent to me should be female if possible." Hannah stated, not happy about the extremely high probability of another chest melons woman showing up. Most of the Cybran Nation was descended from people who were genetically engineered to be aesthetically… gifted… to be used as self-maintaining sex dolls. While Hannah's front and back ends both looked okay, she was basically the nearest equivalent Cybrans had to being flat-chested. This was one of the least favourite subjects of the Cybran of the Elite Four Commanders… unless being used to tease her lover into giving her a little more attention, or to go at it harder, or to let her have her way in pampering him on the occasions where she felt a bit too spoilt in their relationship. Oh, and it was also good for making jokes.

Which was why…

* * *

 _A little later, after the four Jonin in question are welcomed to the Hokage's Office…_

"That's not a Genjutsu…" Kurenai noted, since the others all seemed to be waiting for their new guest—in the same style of armour that Hinata wore on her return, but a whole third taller than the girl—to explain the dark cloud over her head, complete with apparent visible rain and sound effects, but without any actual water.

The woman under it, who wasn't too dissimilar to Kurenai in overall description looked up with glowing red eyes "Consider it a manifestation of being an angst-ridden brat by the standards of my civilization. You can tell that if I light up this doll's eyes like so and dim my facial circuitry patterns, I kind of, from a very long distance, physically resemble a scaled-up version of you with straight hair, right? Yeah, one part didn't scale properly." She jammed a thumb to her matte black chest plate, which was in a masculine style of slab-like plating (though not many males in the Coalition were so tall and broad) compared to Kurenai's sizable bust. "Alright, I'm turning off the hologram and eye glow, sulking is over, time for business." The image over her head blinked out of existence and the sound effect turned off as well.

The black-armored woman cleared her throat before saying what was a grammatically less than perfect version (translator issues) of "Greetings, team leaders that Hinata will likely work with in the relatively near future! I am speaking to you through this doll fitted in Cybran Infantry Armour, to avoid potential communication of diseases and such being too much of an issue. Hinata has been disinfected well enough before being let back into your society, so don't worry there. My name is Hannah Shepard, representing the Cybran Nation among the Elite Four Commanders of the Coalition of Species. We seek to make peaceful contact with this planet and trade for cultural artifacts and tourism, but will not tolerate outright hostility. Since Hinata was the first one from your world to come into contact with us and seems like a decent person, we decided that she will function as a liaison of sorts as we observe how this world works and what sort of cultural or tourism artifacts we can trade for. The Coalition bears no ill intent, as you will see clear proof of later on when you may receive support from us on various missions as Hinata judges necessary and persuades us to lend a hand with. We are always monitoring her condition and surroundings, so anyone trying to coerce her in any way, shape, or form… will not like the consequences."

"Um, which Experimentals would be used to make these consequences?" Hinata asked.

Hannah shrugged "Any one would be more than enough. You know this well, Hinata, so never fear anyone's attempts at coercion."

Sarutobi cleared his throat "In other words, please conduct business as usual as much as possible, despite Hinata's new suit of armour, which I am told will remain absolutely secure and for her use only, and her rather terrifyingly powerful new allies, who may send forces at times to help her. If Hannah here allows it however, then experimentation is permitted, and if she asks for help with something within reason, then treat it as a request from a valued ally and give it due consideration and an explanation if it is denied. Of course, we would like to ask that flow of information and techniques be at least partly a two-way street, Diplomat Shepard."

"That about sums it up, and I readily agree. We want a friendly contact, not bullying the locals into submission…" Hannah agreed. "Hinata can inform you as to reinforcements she plans on bringing in to a particular task, I think. Or we can do a run-through of the Tier 1 units now? At least the land units?"

"For the purposes of not dumping too bad of a shock on anyone who might have spies or seals listening in and inciting something really stupid, I personally think it might be best to give information on a mission-by-mission basis… or at least let them test out your armour's abilities first." Hiruzen stated.

"I think that Dad just wants to see our shocked faces upon every new revealed item." Asuma stage-whispered exceedingly loudly to Kurenai, who rolled her eyes.

Hannah chuckled and looked at the elder Sarutobi "I believe your son is correct."

Hiruzen shrugged "Since the weakest combat unit you have is, as Hinata confirmed, a walking war machine three storeys tall that can run at eighty meters per second, it's not a bad way to get a free show semi-regularly from some of the most unflappable ninja in Konoha." He thought of what Hinata had told him about the most powerful regularly fielded units of the Coalition "Until you finish with all the Experimentals at least, but that…"

"…Will be when Hinata-chan reaches Jonin in a way that we find reasonable compared to her peers." Hannah finished for him, both nodding to one another in agreement to such terms. Sarutobi had had no issue with that, since he didn't want to give too much stress to his troops. "We are interested in life as usual, so please treat Hinata-chan in a manner she recognizes as normal, alright?" She smiled.

Everyone else in the room suddenly felt very small, as if being looked over by a superior predator. This may have had something to do with Hinata stating they could burn a planet in days. It could also be how Hannah (and her avatar too) was about a head taller than any of them and was looking literally down at them, so feeling small was not an unreasonable response…

"Now I should go investigate the largest energy signature our sensors could pick up in this town. Some blonde brat called… uh, the civilians we've overheard so far call him 'demon brat'."

"His name is Uzumaki Naruto!" The older ninja shared a knowing look when Hinata was first to snap this at their visitor.

"Well, it was the villagers' chatter we managed to pick up, so don't blame me. Thanks for the information, Hinata." The intermittent use of honorifics over the past period of conversation told the older ninjas that they shouldn't be surprised if she missed even a -san for, say, Hiruzen "We don't want anything funny to happen to him lest an Othuy or similar energy being, residual or otherwise, be let loose in this town, because his readouts have some passing similarity to an Ythotha's reactor core. If he is so hated as the villagers seem to suggest… it would be most dangerous indeed if he vents his energy."

"He has the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed in him, which is the most likely cause for the unusual energy signature." Hiruzen informed their guest hurriedly before she prodded too far without knowing and caused excess unpleasantness (he was worried about a diplomat punching a civilian's face in for sheer assholery). Then he asked the academy graduate… "Hinata, I am sure you already know this and that it is to be kept secret unless Naruto or I decide to tell someone?" He suddenly remembered something, man, he must really be getting old if he could forget something like this… "Oh yes, when you mentioned proper advancement earlier, Hinata had passed the Academy Graduation Exam just before she ended up going missing, so here is her headband." Hiruzen checked in his drawer, then gave Hinata the headband he'd retrieved "Iruka dropped it off after the exams were finished yesterday, when he came by to see if Hinata had been found yet."

"Well, congratulations, Hinata." Hannah said it out of obligation "May I go now to take a gander at this Naruto Uzumaki? Hinata might want to come too?" Looking at the much smaller girl poking her armoured fingers together at the invitation was hilarious and told a lot about what the girl thought of him. "I'll wait outside for her then."

After the door shut behind Hannah and the privacy seals reactivated, Hiruzen prodded "What is an Othuy?"

"When an Ythotha, one of the most powerful land units in the Coalition arsenal, is destroyed, its special reactor core cannot shut down safely enough." Hinata recounted what she remembered "Instead of venting as one huge explosion, it becomes a floating energy signature that shoots out extremely damaging and powerful beams and lightning bolts in various directions, all eventually arcing to ground themselves in the ground. It vents this way at friend and foe alike for about thirty seconds before fading from existence. Thus, letting an Ythotha charge alone into enemy lines is actually a good strategy. After all, replacements aren't that expensive or slow to build…"

Sarutobi groaned at the thought of a Tailed Beast being compared to something that could be mass-produced… "And to think that I was glad there seemed to be nothing nastier happening around the village this year than Naruto painting the Monument…"

* * *

"What the hell are they feeding probably the most important asset this village has?" Hannah muttered as she gawked down at the ridiculously short kid who'd just rounded a corner and run into her, holding a photo of some sort. The kid was holding his face after running face-first into her upper abdominal plates due to his puny 145 centimeters. "Kid, do you even eat vegetables?"

"No way, vegetables are gross!" Naruto shouted at the rude lady in the black armour before he pulled his hand away from his face… wait… he looked up… and up… _Wow she's tall… Bah, damn bitch probably doesn't know that none of the grocers would sell me fresh products, bah. Best I can usually do is depend on Ichiraku's for some nutrition while getting by on instant noodles that are at least a year past their supposed expiry date. Oh, and dumpster diving, never forget the dumpster diving._

As their world wasn't all that industrialized overall, food production levels still meant that, while the Hidden Villages were generally well-fed, the dumpsters were not in fact full of good food with damaged packaging. It was thanks to the Nine-Tails that Naruto had survived his desperate eating habits.

"You won't grow tall if you don't eat vegetables, kid. Look, if you ever need food, come to the top of the ridge with those face sculptures. I'm going to be putting up an agricultural tower up there to grow local vegetables experimentally and you could probably use some food from the looks of you. I'll buy you food until our first crops are ready in a few days' time." Localized Time Manipulation wasn't that hard for a species who had a flak technology named the Temporal Fizz Launcher which did EXACTLY WHAT THE NAME SUGGESTED.

The crop yields and quality would be rather meh at best without enough human attention and in many plants' cases some active Psionic influences. Those were actively suppressed by non-civilian Coalition buildings to prevent combat use of Psionics—disrupting it was much easier than using it, and passive energy diffusion just wasn't enough for certain types of plants to prosper in. Regardless, one agricultural tower for one kid was a vastly excessive amount of food energy, even if the kid seemed like he had something similar to an Othuy sealed away in him, so the yields should be fine…

Naruto stared up at the woman, who had creepy glowing orange lines along one side of her face "I'm going to ask Gramps about it first." He said, scrambling up and scurrying past her, or trying to before he stopped before being clotheslined. "Hey, why are you blocking my way?!"

"If I'm not very much wrong, you are talking about the Hokage, right? He's in a meeting right now with the teachers for this year's three teams and Hinata's cousin's team." Hannah leaked some information on purpose, to probe for knowledge.

"What? But Genin teams are usually three students and a Jonin-sensei, and there are like thirty students in my class alone! Is the passing rate that low for the teams that so many have to go to the Reserves?" Naruto panicked.

Hannah frowned while contemplating the possible reasons "Relax, kid, surely there are other classes in your year, and the prospective sensei for the teams likely to pass in those classes, or others in your class, just aren't here because Hinata isn't familiar with those students, so is less likely to be assigned to work with them. The Jonin should be done meeting with him in a few minutes, since the only thing that he should be telling them is to strictly enforce business as usual despite Hinata's… changes."

"Hinata… oh, the white-eyed girl in my class! She's nice, but really weird! She doesn't dislike me, which is really creepy…" Naruto shivered at the incredibly disturbing idea of someone not hating him for existing. Even Sakura had become hostile once he'd become quite bothersome enough, but that was okay, she kept his fire alive by making sure he knew his place as less than the shit on the roads of the village.

Iruka-sensei, Mizuki-sensei, the Ichirakus and the Third were practically abominations by this standard, but Naruto liked abominations. They were nice to him. They cared. Perhaps then, he really was what the villagers labelled him, an abomination, with how he adored his own kind…

It would taste all the sweeter then, when one day he could make the hateful scum known as Konoha villagers turn their hatred back, and hate themselves for what they'd done to him all his life. Killing them or letting them take their own lives in guilt would be too kind, but to force them to live, filled anew with regret every time they looked at the Hokage Monument… that was why he wanted to be Hokage. He'd protect the village… protect the few people he cared about and who cared for him—even Sakura was fairly neutral when he wasn't actively trying to be obnoxious… better than neutral if Sasuke wasn't exerting his baleful presence at the time—he'd protect it even from their own desire or actions to absolve themselves of their guilt!

"Hinata is an associate of mine, so I would appreciate if you didn't speak so rudely to her." Hannah's eyes glowed red to intimidate him a bit more, though the kid's back-story sounded horrid if he thought people who didn't hate him were weird.

Naruto thought of who Hinata had mentioned in public before that had red eyes and black hair. "Are you the Kurenai-sensei that Hinata sometimes talks about with other people? Hinata said she had black hair and red eyes…" On the plus side, the Hyuuga heiress never seemed interested in talking to him after that time with his scarf, when she was just starting school. This thought of one of the few nice girls he'd met ignoring his existence completely helped him stay grounded on occasions when Sakura was neutral or frighteningly actually reasonably friendly, if he hadn't harassed her recently.

"Nah, Yuuhi Kurenai has bigger boobs and fluffier hair, and if I dim down my circuitry and eyes, my base eye colour is brown. She's also not even close to my height, weight and general size. Name's Hannah Shepard, pleased to meet you."

It was at this time that the four Jonin and Hinata emerged from the Hokage's office. "Hello there Uzumaki-san." Kurenai said. Gai was busy being pensive over the merits of intellectual and scientific hard work versus the physical. He was also eying Hinata's armour while contemplating how best to break Neji of his emo-ness toward the Main House without having the boy break his head on Hinata's new suit at any point. Kakashi and Asuma simply waved lazily, because they couldn't be bothered to be more active.

"Ah, hello Kurenai-sensei, Uncle Asuma" Given he called Hiruzen "Gramps", and Hiruzen had pointed Asuma out on family photos that was inevitable and Asuma shrugged acknowledgement… "Dog, and the Hulk!" Kakashi twitched slightly at being called by his old ANBU mask.

Gai on the other hand had a somewhat worse response "Why does everyone call Konoha's Green Beast the name of a comic book character?" He lamented while using a thundercloud Genjutsu over his head. "My explosions of YOUTH are not nearly so destructive!" Never mind how the thundercloud Genjutsu exploded the moment he yelled that word… As a side note, yes, he had read said comics just to see what people were talking about. Contrary to popular belief, Gai and Lee did not in fact spend every waking second shouting about Youth and doing crazy physical stunts. After all, mental development was also a critical part of YOUTH!

Ahem… please disregard that mental shout of YOUTH that was practically visible in sparkling letters above the man's head.

…

…Please also disregard the "practically", because even Hannah's doll's camera eyes were registering the image.

"…That's a good holographic projection put out by pure Psionic energy. So… uh…" Her eyes fixed on Hinata, who seemed noticeably smaller now than a moment ago, and who was looking at Naruto occasionally and pushing her index fingers together. "I'll go ask the Hokage for permission to set up an Agricultural Building on top of Hokage Mountain to help handle Naruto's nutritional needs… and ask him why the most valuable asset this village has is malnourished." Hannah said, smirking evilly, before pulling Hinata forward, causing the girl to stumble a bit, and pushing her face to face with Naruto "You have fun chatting with Naruto, Hinata-chan!"

"You don't have to if you don't want to!" She heard Naruto saying loudly as she entered the office again. "Hey, Hinata, are you alright? Do you have a fever? Ah, I think she fainted! Oh good, your armour's keeping you up… How's it doing that? Well, I'm glad anyhow… I don't think I could catch you without getting crushed with how bulky that suit looks…" There were four meaty smacks as all the Jonin present introduced their faces to their palms in disappointment at the boy's obliviousness. "Oh, you're probably allergic to me, whether in chakra after that incident yesterday—sorry about that—or smell… guess I should stay well clear of you in the future then whenever your armour isn't sealed. I hope it is chakra-proof though… what the hell am I doing talking at an unconscious girl like this?" There was another facepalm, this time by Naruto.

Hiruzen kept smiling at Hannah as she held the door open for him to hear Naruto's rant, then very slowly lowered his forehead to his desk, and equally slowly raised it up a bit, before lowering it very slowly and quietly again, several times, to express his disappointment. Meanwhile, outside, Kakashi watched his sensei's son showing mind-breaking stupidity, and felt a disturbance building in his skull. It was as if trillions of voices were crying out in despair, each and every brain cell crying out in agony… before he abruptly silenced them by forcing the crushing hopelessness away. Meanwhile a strangled noise that may or may not have been a moan about lack of proper understanding of YOUTH made its way from the general direction of Gai.

It only took a brief time before Hannah secured the local government's permission to cordon off a relatively small (compared to what Hiruzen had expected) area on top of the small plateau known as Hokage Rock to the locals and build an Agricultural Building there, along with a suitable "fence" and unit patrol to keep curious idiots out. It seemed the Hokage did not want to ruin Konoha's general genteel façade by forcing the merchants into submission in selling to Naruto, because unlike the samurai class, he actually appreciated the value of the merchant class.

Thanks to the Psi-nullifying technology incorporated in every structure and unit the Coalition fielded except the ones earmarked as "civilian", climbing over the walls surrounding the "Agricultural Center" would be impossible. The walls would be unbuilt and rebuilt by a Sparky Tier 2 Field Engineer whenever someone needed to pass through, and any would-be intruders would be "kindly" escorted out by Mech Marines on standby. It would be one of Hackett's outposts for aesthetic reasons, since the blocky UEF construction would probably be more familiar as human to the locals than the curvy, lithe Aeon structures or jagged, angular Cybran ones. Why Seth wasn't ever going to be put to the task of being the public face when making contact with other humans should be patently obvious to anyone with a working intellect.

Fortunately for them, every loyal Konoha ninja and civilian was smart enough to obey the Hokage's announcement that an area was being cordoned off over the Hokage Monument for everyone's safety and the establishment of a diplomatic outpost. Unfortunately for them, some "blank-masked idiots" as Hannah put it were quite dumb enough to be sent afoul of the handful of Light Assault Bots patrolling the perimeter. While the very limited splash damage of Ariel's Flares to Hackett's units (the Aeon LABs' weapon splash didn't harm their own, but did hurt units from allied armies) was quickly repaired by the Sparkys on site, and Hannah treated this as a perfectly natural and expected probe of the Coalition units' abilities, Hiruzen remembered to remind Danzo to not meddle in affairs he did not understand.

Oh, and Hiruzen had also managed to persuade Naruto into accepting the diplomat's hospitality, despite the boy's great suspicion he still ate ravenously… and was thoroughly astonished to not have died of poison after eating. Hannah was glad this was one of Hackett's outposts, because she'd have seriously loudly contemplated putting a couple Soul Rippers on patrol to politely ask the idiot villagers to treat the boy better.

* * *

 **A/N: I am contemplating eventually making Anko go all the way to Echidna (from Queen's Blade) levels of outfits, complete with snake. Please comment on this idea.** On a side note if that planet exists in this universe (or the Eva universe which they have access to through Alpha 7 Quarantine) then Hannah is going to SCREAM in sheer breast envy…

Review Replies!

 **BH18** : Why thank you!

 **Uzukage-of-the-Storm** : And Psionic energy being Chakra is completely logical since that's exactly what chakra translates as conceptually. About the SupCom ME revival… you DO notice the character names, right? Hannah Shepard, a female Williams (most Aeon families use matrilineal last names…), Steven Hackett, and now David Anderson?

 **FaerieKnight197** : Quite simply, it's almost purely for my own reference benefit.

REVIEW!


	8. Passed By Default

**A/N:** Spoiler alert for this A/N, because filler chapters linking Plot Point A and Plot Point B tend to be boring… We'll be seeing the other characters like Mizuki again in a couple chapters, so don't worry, I haven't forgotten that major change…

 **Remember when I said that genetic analysis said that Hinata had a couple signs of inbreeding? Hitomi** (who didn't die from childbirth in canon because that image with her, Hinata, Hiashi and Hanabi together with her standing and smiling would have been impossible… unless they posed her corpse in which case I doubt Hinata would look so cheerful…) **and Mikoto were just inbred enough to hurt their mental stability… and nothing else. On the other hand, if you really think Itachi could hope to even think of fighting Mikoto** (Fugaku had been the sacrifice by the clan at her altar) **then… you've got another think coming.** The inspiration for that subplot came from the author Lucillia as per "Konoha's Greatest Hoax". Having it happen shortly after an episode of Mizuki trying to coach Naruto in street fighting by bar brawls was just icing on the humour cake. As a side note there's another big hoax in the Hyuuga Clan, but that's something else (and no, it's not Hiashi and his brother)…

 **The only Naruto character I know of taller than Ariel Williams in Aeon Infantry Armour (Model 3849) is Han.**

* * *

Chapter 8: Passed By Default

 _Contact Day +2, March 27, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

"Team 8, led by Yuuhi Kurenai, will be Hyuuga Hinata, Aburame Shino, and Inuzuka Kiba. You will also be responsible for Konoha's relations with an important ambassador, who will tag along to observe our culture and customs, and help out as needed." Iruka said, before blinking at the size of the armoured woman who came in after Kurenai. "I'll not maul her name, as I doubt I can get it right given it is from a foreign language… wait… your first name is just…Hana?"

The exceedingly tall woman chuckled. "Close enough in pronunciation, I'm Hannah Shepard, from a culture where family names come second to denote that the group is nothing without its members, while members can survive without a group." It seemed a black-haired boy with dark eyes and mostly bluish clothes, who had previously been broody and uninterested, suddenly took note of the towering guest beyond the "wow she's big" phase. "I am a warrior who has been pressed in as a diplomat. The faction I represent is interested in local culture and customs" and in shunting the Elite Four out of the line of sight of Aeon and Cybran objectors to Hannah's possibly unwise choice of husband "so I've been permitted to tag along and assist with Hinata-chan's team. She was the first among your people to contact my civilization in her accident during the graduation exam." The Cybran remote-controlling the doll ignored Hinata's crimson flush in favour of noting with some annoyance that she wasn't wearing her armour today. What if they were to be tested today by the Jonin assigned to the teams?

Clearly, they had a problem if these kids were supposed to become soldiers. There were two options to train lifelong, professional soldiers. The first was from birth, which resulted in quick burnouts at best, lasting physical damage in worlds that lacked the technology to prevent stunting of growth due to excess stress, or at worst psychopathy like the Orochimaru story that Hannah had read from the local textbooks, or Itachi. The second was from mental adulthood like Coalition ACU pilots were, and even that had a sadly high rate of people going nuts and having to be put down.

What Hannah was seeing was trying to take the first approach physically and mentally, imposing its physical and mental burdens, but mostly trying to do the second. The problem was that they'd already begun with the first and all its curses, and were also getting the downsides of the second, which was a longer training period for the majority of people who would inevitably be cannon fodder. In forms of war requiring more capital and less manpower, why bother training so many brats when one could train a few professionals and leave the rest to breed more troops in the next generation? That was the extreme the Coalition went to, whereas this planet was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

While they were picking up their students, a pair of blue eyes watched the towering armoured woman with great suspicion. Uzumaki Naruto might have had two good meals with vegetables that weren't rotten for once, which was a nice change from his usual survival diet, he supposed, but he was still leery of the new woman. Letting his guard down would be a quick way to get killed or abducted because of what he contained… He would stay careful… but… _curses, I'm already starting to think of her as a fellow abomination, someone who actually likes and cares for me. It's only been two fucking meals and she's already getting to me… did she drug the food or something? Experiment on my brain while I slept?_

 _I must be more careful… but… Gramps explained things well enough, and… food…_

Kids who spent most of their lives eating out of trash cans, being beaten by passers-by for being within their sight—or even just being found randomly, for existing—and full of hate were not so easy to earn the faith of. They were suspicious of everything. It had only been the Hokage's assurances (bought by some demonstrations, Hinata's testimony, and Hyuuga ANBU observations of the small base being built on Hokage Rock) that had led Naruto to eventually accept the offer of food. The agricultural building had been put up in mere minutes once the locally valid legal documents for land rental were filed, which went a long way toward proving their power.

As for how Naruto grew up like that, sadly for the Third Hokage's efforts to help him as much as possible, Hiruzen's Shadow Clones would flip him off before dispelling themselves in exceedingly painful ways instead of doing paperwork. Hiruzen had learnt to not call upon them unless absolutely necessary for paperwork, as in, something had happened to Naruto or the village as a whole (usually one or more of Naruto's major pranks going off at once). That was the only condition under which the Clones would stick around and do as they were told. The sensation of being castrated several times within a few seconds, conveyed by the dispelling clones, was not good for his elderly health. It wasn't the best for the psychological health of any male of any age, actually, but that was beside the point.

XX

After the obligatory introductions between the team members and the briefing about the true Genin Test, Hannah asked Kurenai to check out the local bars. The response was… "I doubt you would be interested in wasting alcohol on a body which, as you said previously, is a sex doll you are controlling remotely, so plying me with drink to get me to talk… you could have just asked." They shared a laugh at that.

"Very well, I wanted to inform you that Hinata will have to do the Genin Exam without any unit assisting her. She will have to make do with what she already has, namely the armour, with the user interface disabled. This is a matter of mindset in terms of adapting new and superior equipment to one's fighting style, and the lack of a display in front of her is because our sensors would most likely be retardedly overpowered against someone who specializes in illusions."

Kurenai hummed in acknowledgement of that information "Will you be participating on my side of the exercise? Since I don't have the teaching lineage to claim fair use of the Bell Test, I was thinking of using my red sash as a prize to divide them. It would be more realistic since there are cases of Genin being sole apprentices, but no cases of two-member Genin cells unless one died, was maimed into retiring, or is away sick. However, Shino is too smart, both boys are too pack-oriented, and Hinata is a shoo-in due to your entrance onto the scene. This is the one Genin team that is absolutely guaranteed to pass this year, and I'd be surprised if Shino didn't figure that out after you were introduced. So…"

"A skills exhibition then?" Hannah asked.

The smaller black-haired woman nodded "That is what I'm planning now."

"I recommend testing the durability of my armour first then so you have a good idea what to expect from Hinata. Don't worry, even if you pierce it I can fix this sex doll right up by using a silicon-based version of medi-gel."

Kurenai grimaced as they proceeded toward the training ground that Team 8 was assigned "I swear, I never thought I would ever spar with anyone who used any form of puppet technique on a sex doll."

"Yeah, well, I never thought I'd remote-control this thing as a body double other than trolling my husband sometime a decade or two down the road after the honeymoon phase ends. As you can probably tell I'm not exactly all that good yet at controlling this thing, so a lot of the actual fighting I might end up involved in would be me using this thing's movement coding and just aiming the cursor to make it aim its gun. I could still pick off targets myself by assuming direct control if needed, but honestly it's easier to multitask if I treat this like a video game… hell, even setting this to autonomous combat against designated targets could work fine given the disparity in power and such."

"Isn't overconfidence dangerous?" Kurenai prodded.

"It's not like I can't buy many more of these dolls with my pay grade, even if I couldn't write them off as mission expenses, which I probably can. In real life, well, rock does not normally beat laser, particular when the laser is this far ahead, can stand completely away from risk, and has multiple silos with city-killing weapons on standby. I got some weapons from a supply drop last night on the base up there." She gestured toward Hokage Mountain "I suppose we should test my armour now against the weapons and techniques you have available?"

"That would be agreeable, yes." _Though… what's a laser?_

"Alright, helmet on, because I don't want to have to run too many repairs to this thing's face." The Cybran, looking almost like a miniature counterpart of the Cybran ACU minus the various horns, looked at her new friend. "Let's begin."

"Let's try one of my better Genjutsu first to see if it has any effect… Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Death!" If there was one thing fortunate with East Asian languages, it was that they tended to compress more information into fewer syllables, relying on intonation more often, because that was a lot longer in English translation than what Kurenai stated as a mnemonic of sorts.

"…Odd, the sensors can tell it's not real, but I am held mostly in place, it would require a great deal of force to break through this Psionic construct… or a way of destabilizing it enough without being patched by you quickly enough, which would require weapons fire or me fitting a Psi Disruptor on this armour as a customization. The problem then is, can you channel your chakra to do a major attack technique while holding this up, or are you restricted to weapons?"

Kurenai shrugged while sitting on one of the tree's branches "Depends on the opponent, someone sufficiently competent at illusions can limit me to only Taijutsu, kunai and shuriken, depending on the Genjutsu I use."

Speaking of weapons… "If guns exist in this world I cannot see how they haven't overtaken the bow and arrow in mass usage yet… ah, Psionics… it's always goddamned Psionics… you can enhance a bow and arrow, make it so that the gain in quantity from massed guns doesn't match up to the loss in quality… and you can conscript kids for that earlier than you can conscript gun users with early firearms due to the recoil." She grumbled to herself, before looking around "You know, I really don't think we can call chakra constructs like this illusions…"

"Well, they do come close to bridging the gap between Genjutsu and Ninjutsu…"

"Alright, how about you build up as much energy as you can in that kunai, and try stabbing me with it?"

"Sure, why not." Kurenai dispelled her Genjutsu, and did as Hannah asked.

…

"We treat kunai and shuriken as basically disposable, but this is a lot more disposable than I'd expected…" The Genjutsu expert noted as she examined the completely wrecked tool, with the front end smashed to scrap and twisted off the handle thanks to the amount of chakra-boosted force she'd put into it.

"Here, let me remake that kunai for you… so, tungsten carbide, titanium carbide, diamond, or plain old titanium?"

Kurenai didn't pass the practically destroyed kunai over, opting to ask "…what?"

Hannah's avatar rapped a fist on her own helmet in annoyance at herself. "…I forgot that you don't live in a post-scarcity society. Sorry."

Kurenai chuckled "Now I feel like a country bumpkin."

Hannah settled on using diamond. The size change due to density difference on a limited mass—she wasn't tapped into the Battle Network economically due to space and such restrictions on her equipment—was unavoidable, but at least Kurenai would have a good etching tool. Wait, diamonds were probably still precious gems in this world, so even if anything happened to Kurenai, so long as no one realized it wasn't a glass or quartz decoration before that, she could still probably have enough money to live out her life well enough. "Eh, well, at least a 22nd century human descendant with good psionic strength, like you, wouldn't get their neck broken in one good slap to the head from a 39th century human. A 20th century human would probably have their head torn off if I punched them. It was wise of you to merely hold my armour in place instead of trying to invade it with your chakra."

"I could sense that it was chakra absorbing. You seem rather callous about slapping people to death though."

"ACU warfare distances you from the act of killing, but I still have a long trail of blood under my belt."

"Menstruation?" Kurenai more or less stole Anko's joke the last time someone said they had lots of blood under their belt… though the last couple times Anko used such jokes had been "an erection?" and "hemorrhoids?" respectively, as it had been men saying that.

The glowing red helmet optics—designed for instinctive intimidation, much like how Kurenai suspected her family's red eyes had evolved—blinked. "…You still have that around here?"

"Well, all lineages I know do, even if it's once per year or so while staying fertile all the time in the case of some lineages I've heard of." Their chatter devolved into girl talk for a while, until they decided to seek out Kakashi to test elemental Ninjutsu, after Kurenai tested some of her other Genjutsu and some relatively basic Ninjutsu. Kakashi was the best all-round elemental Ninjutsu user in Konoha after all…

* * *

 _Slightly later, guided by Spooks patrolling over Konoha, among other things…_

"Really, Kakashi? You still haven't gone to meet your students yet?" Kurenai deadpanned.

"A ninja has to give the right impression, after all. I want them to think I'm useless and see how long they take to figure out my reputation isn't bullshit, then come ask me for help, particularly coming together to ask me. That's assuming they even pass…" His eye swivelled back down to read his literature, and he mumbled a prayer to it "Icha-Icha, please tell me why I had to get the fan-girl and her idol on the same damned team…"

Hannah figured that the one-eyed Jonin was reading porn in broad daylight to help enforce that useless image, so she didn't mention it. She did however note "Your headband has an interesting energy signature under it."

"That would be my Sharingan, Shepard-san."

"Interesting… I'm guessing you wouldn't want me prodding further on that one. Would you mind testing some elemental Ninjutsu on me to test how well this armour holds up against local firepower?"

"It's Chakra Armour." Kurenai informed Kakashi, who sighed.

"Many Ninjutsu are ineffective against Chakra Armour, but it is true that elemental Ninjutsu tend to fare better because a huge boulder flying at someone is still, well, a huge boulder flying at someone, and a well-shaped, mostly self-stable electrical charge…" He was thinking of his Chidori and its higher-level counterpart.

"Well, I guess not so huge boulders, please, because I'm trying to test durability, not my ability to dodge, and tunnelling my way out from under a boulder would be a real hassle… not to mention rebuilding the head of this thing once it gets squished into a pile of synthetic flesh paste if I try it sans helmet."

Kakashi closed his book, also interested in testing the foreigner's armour for academic purposes if nothing else "Eh, why not… I'll start low and go up to my Raikiri if needed." Kurenai blinked at the mention of the famous Lightning Cutter. "If you don't mind taking the armour off and holding it out like a matador's cloth for me to test? I don't want to damage anything… delicate, even if you're only puppeting that doll."

Kakashi knew full well he couldn't take on the combined female population of Konoha and last more than about two seconds, and being seen beating a foreign ambassador's armour to pieces just to look like he was doing so to grope whatever was underneath was a Bad Idea by that standard. Sadly, Kakashi was just the sort of guy unfortunate enough that he could trip over in a mixed bath and somehow face-plant in a woman's crotch while simultaneously pulling towels off three others. Studying seals from Jiraiya really wasn't worth that incredibly specific and mysterious coordination problem… although where Jiraiya might have put a seal for such on him, Kakashi did not know.

History should note that Jiraiya did not in fact intend to teach him such a skill. It was just that when he was getting Kakashi into peeking, in order to remove the pole from the boy's ass, the boy used his Sharingan sometimes. Over the span of a relatively brief time learnt to imitate the delicate art of perverse bodily coordination from the Super Pervert without even realizing it. The Sharingan was not always a helpful tool… then again its associated perfect emotional recall wasn't always Curse of Hatred level problem either. In other news, Kakashi was still seeking pills—that weren't too sketchy to use—to induce erectile dysfunction to help him deal with his Sharingan memories.

Hannah grinned and shrugged "Ah, I've always been interested in the saying that the fastest way to a girl's heart is straight through it. Would be interesting to experience without having to undergo medical procedures after… or the stress of an accelerated rebuild while running on auxiliary circulatory and respiratory options."

"So many people would target you to study those augmentations if nothing else that I'm glad you aren't here in person… presuming your claim is actually true." Kakashi said flatly, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest at the mention of how he'd killed his last girlfriend (Nohara Rin). His mind trembled and creaked at the effort to not show how sickening the memory was to him… because it aroused him.

Hannah shrugged, unknowing and uncaring of the man's internal struggle against the darkness in his soul and the rabid animal instinct of being aroused by blood and contact with death. "A valid concern if not for the forces at my disposal. Let's begin."

* * *

 _Even more slightly later…_

"YOU'RE LATE!" There was only one Academy Graduate so good at sound techniques in Konoha…

Kakashi shrugged, not bothering to remove the blackboard eraser whose dust blended in with his hair "I got lost on the road of life… and had to get my hand healed after helping a new friend test her set of Chakra Armour with my Chidori and breaking my hand on the back plate after punching through the belly plates. The chest plate could probably have stopped me outright unless I powered up to Raikiri." She'd done as he'd asked regarding taking it off and holding the armour out for the test for the more powerful directed attacks. "My first impression is… I don't like you."

It was at this moment that Sasuke finally managed to process that the Sharingan Thief that his babysitters scared him with (strangely, they insisted he not speak of the stories to his mother and he'd complied… perhaps they used Genjutsu…) was in fact not only completely real but also looking at his eyes with interest. Then he emitted a scream almost worthy of the Haruno Clan's females, who were regularly invited to be ninja, but were still considered a civilian clan. The ensuing pursuit of a certain boy who was definitely related to Shunshin no Shisui lasted almost ten minutes before Sakura of all people ( _hmm, there's potential there_ was Kakashi's opinion) finally caught the boy. Sasuke promptly fainted upon realizing something more dangerous than the Sharingan Thief had a vie-hold on his head… a _fan-girl_ … and a _HARUNO_ at that!

 _Hmm…_ Speaking of which, Kakashi should really test Sakura's chakra affinity as soon as the team was reasonably settled. Haruno females tended to be either Wind or Lightning, as befitting their thunderous volumes. _I wonder what any offspring of Sasuke with Sakura would be like… the Sharingan with area-of-effect Genjutsu casting by voice, or area techniques again by dint of concussive voice waves… that would be interesting indeed._

 _Wait just one moment… isn't partial Haruno ancestry at least partly responsible for Gai's volume?_ Kakashi paled at that thought as he beheld the prospect of the pink-haired girl inventing anything rivalling the Legendary Sunset Genjutsu. _Uh, never mind, any offspring between Sakura and Sasuke would probably be more nuts than their grandmother…_

* * *

 **A/N:** Sure, you might get hurled if you get hit by Kubikiribocho, but it will not penetrate the surface of the armour unless you really, really, screwed up the angles and the guy put some Chakra-based Technique into it, and even then it wouldn't get far.

The Chidori can punch a hole through 3849-era belly plating (structural integrity field deactivated) when used by Kakashi. Given how strong the technique is… Hinata's armour is a huge boost.

I'm not going to make the Uzumaki Clan a Mary Sue Race like canon, unless I want to introduce another guest from the stars (e.g. screwing a more modern human, as in 26th-plus century instead of a descendant of 22nd century humans, was when they split off from the Senju, and is the origin of their longevity and healing factor). Canon's repeated catering to Sasuke in Part II can go suck a Mavor. Expect to see a lot of minor characters being elevated (e.g. Kurenai, etc.) and getting stronger.

* * *

 _The Next Day, March 28, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

"Hinata?" Kurenai greeted.

"Yes, Kurenai-sensei?"

Hannah's translator, from where she was in a tree with Active Camouflage and Active Stealth running, spat out Kurenai's response as… "To quote your father's frequent and epic failures in communication with children… don't take this too seriously, but… I am disappoint."

"Why?" Kiba asked that in protest, since Hinata had immediately wilted under Kurenai's frown, despite the disclaimer.

"Where is your new armour?" Kurenai asked.

Hinata poked her index fingers together "Um, well, it really doesn't fit well with the Gentle Fist style, especially the more advanced moves I've been learning so…"

Hannah held said armour up in front of the young girl, after pulling it off her back where she'd attached it. Cloaking systems were great for item retrieval after all… and for making the ninja present jump about a foot in the air as she suddenly appeared between them. "Kid, ninja take every advantage they can get, every… single… one. Now, unless you're telling me that you have a move ready that involves expelling energy from all over your body in a coordinated fashion at once," she had no idea how ironic this would turn out later "then I'm quite sure the Gentle Fist will be fine with just your fingers, or elbows at worst, exposed. You could have just not put those particular pieces on."

"Hey, stop bullying Hinata-chan!" Kiba said at the huge woman, since she didn't have a Konoha headband, he felt it proper to protect his pack from being pushed around by an outsider.

Hannah took the time to intimidate the boy by towering over him "Did you know, that almost two thousand years ago, only about two percent of soldiers came back from war unchanged, able to go on as if they'd never been to war? They called those people sociopaths. With modern war in my civilization, the proportion of the population that actually fights is less than one in a million… so almost every single ACU pilot is an extremely high-functioning sociopath by… well, pretty much any standards." She watched as her avatar came too close and the boy instinctively punched her in the belly to make some distance, since he'd already been tensed from her arrival. Then she chuckled.

Kiba felt as if he'd done something rather stupid with his hand as he pulled it back and shook it a bit "Ow… sorry, stupid reflexes…" Technically, this was not a reflex, as reflexes did not involve the brain.

Meanwhile, Kurenai was talking to Hinata and Shino "I had the good fortune to test the durability of the armour, Hinata." Kurenai grimaced, having barely hidden her reaction to Hannah's earlier words and suggested Technique. "By tabletop gaming terms if the standard mesh shirts count as something between five to ten defence points, then that armour set is something on the order of thousands, along with gigantic boosts to every physical statistic a character can have. Of course, I think Hannah will keep most of the more, ah, extreme power-ups disabled for now, because when I tested them, well… there's still a scuff mark on the side of the Hokage Tower where I literally went way too far when trying to check how far and high it could jump." Kurenai grinned at the funny memory, since it for some reason hadn't hurt at all to practically fly into the side of the Hokage Tower and come to a very sudden stop. Hinata cringed at the thought and Shino didn't react except one raised eyebrow "I was a bit disappointed that you didn't bring it yourself so that you could do a demonstration of what you could do with and without it, but now that we've clarified the utility of a good piece of armour that serves as extremely powerful Chakra Armour to even a ninja, not just samurai…"

"That's Chakra Armour?" Shino said loudly and very suddenly, causing everyone to stare at the boy who had been completely silent until now, as if only now registering his existence. "But my insects aren't detecting anything off with it?"

"That's because it only absorbs Psi energy if it gets invaded, and I didn't turn on the Psi Disruptor I installed last night on my back here, see this pack between the two thruster pods?" Hannah thumbed behind her at the whole ensemble she'd installed exceedingly recently "That thing could shut down weak Psionic users, constructs, links and projections within a hundred or so meters, stronger ones would need me be closer, and past a certain threshold of power things aren't affected anymore. Your sensei here could probably hold up her stronger Genjutsu at twenty meters or maybe even less when I have the device powered up, which is quite powerful given the disruption power fades with the inverse square of the distance. It's not nearly as powerful as the ones fitted on our actual land, sea or air units though. Those are intended to wear away at and tear apart souls they've killed so that they can't be collected and resurrected should the land be retaken quickly enough, as in within a couple days or so, before Psi residues fully fade from our detectability. The most any soul would feel near my device is a bit of irritation, and that's at the maximum possible output on this thing."

The three kids seemed very disturbed at that matter-of-fact claim. Kurenai shook her head as if amused by Hannah telling an exaggerated joke, but in reality to indicate that she really needed to steer the subject away NOW! Having the three students learn they were standing before someone who'd almost certainly murdered many millions of civilians and still acted terrifyingly normal would be horrifically counterproductive. Then again, Kurenai thought the information told to Kakashi and herself did prove a good point. If the woman could have a stable relationship and loving marriage across factional lines but remain loyal to her faction at the same time, then enlisting while emotionally more mature really did have its benefits for mental stability compared to, say, Itachi, Kakashi or _Gai_. Being able to speak of how your faction had technology designed specifically to destroy wandering, dead souls while otherwise living normally was an awesome feat indeed…

The Soul Ripper Experimental Gunship, in the first iteration that gave the whole lineage its name, had been truly experimental. It had been the first Cybran Psi Disruption Generator, specifically designed to kill Aeon and UEF filth as dead as the Illuminate and Federation killed all the Cybrans they could get their claws on. The chatter between Kakashi, Kurenai and Hannah then wandered to the subject of her marriage to an extremely (in)famous Aeon ACU pilot due to her use of the tem "filth" for the Illuminate and Federation. The story of their relationship and Xavier Fran's reputation beforehand had been quite an uplifting and hopeful tale to the ninja…

Meanwhile Hannah was continuing her explanation with "Now, your armour is a more basic set without these customizations I added last night, such as Psi Disruptor, Flight Pack, Personal Cloaking, or even Personal Stealth. However, it should still be ludicrously more powerful than anything this planet has of comparable size. We need to get you time to train with the augmenting effect of the armour so that the first time you use it in combat, you don't accidentally punch someone's head off in a spar." Hinata paled almost instantly, imagining sparring with Naruto and accidentally killing him. "But you still have to hit them, and hurt them, because an enemy would just kill them outright if they leave any gaps, any at all, due to bad habits from training." She remembered her own training in ACU warfare, where she kept getting smacked down in simulator match after simulator match until she learnt enough to win. Eventually (abnormally fast, even for a Cybran) she turned the tables on the training programs and finally qualified for actual training against real pilots… before her identification as a prodigy and subsequent, more intensive training. Then she became an SCU pilot, and after that, eventually graduated to piloting ACUs in time for some of the more crucial missions revolving around Black Sun and the Quantum Virus.

Kurenai clapped her hands together "Now that our guest has finished thoroughly disturbing you three…" _Not that what she said is in any way disturbing compared to when she talked to us last Jonin-sensei night about how civilians kill counts were measured between pilots in their wars. She avoided talking about her own civilian kill count, most likely a very large number, and her husband was completely skirted around in an obvious fashion to discourage questions. Then she showed some of their basic units to us after inviting us to dinner at the buildings she'd put up on top of Hokage Mountain…_ "Let's see what you can do. Kiba, I think you'd like to go first?" _I can't wait until the first time he makes a dumb comment about civilians' longer education compared to ninjas. A technological civilization's soldier-general-designer prodigy would tear him a new one verbally for undervaluing the maths and sciences… I think Anko is rubbing her sadism off on me._

"Yeah!"

* * *

 **A/N:** Naruto is eventually going to get schooled for his disdain toward the maths and sciences. It probably won't be a lecture… more of a matter of "See that? That's what science got us after 1200 years of war, before it we still had infantry on the ground in warfare. What has your chakra gotten you after the Warring Clans period, compared to before it?" Actually, I think most of Team 7 will get schooled, particularly when Sakura and Sasuke greet her as "sir" with her helmet on due to lack of enough breasts to have bulges in her chest plate… and the sheer height. Sasuke wouldn't recognize her well without the face and with all her extra armour add-ons.

I repeat that I will not go the canon route and give out constant power-ups like candy to Sasuke and Naruto to distract readers with more and more flashy techniques. However, I will power up some canonically minor or at most support characters ("MY EYES!" Kurenai, and "Literal Bokukko" Tsunade) greatly to make the story more fun. **Anyone who has read anything I ever wrote knows I vastly prefer having OP female characters than males, even if the male is the main protagonist.** I also favour female characters getting power-ups.

* * *

 _After Kiba and Shino's exhibitions (not to be confused with exhibitionism)…_

"It'll be the best for last, Hinata!" Kiba thumped her on the back, and she stumbled a bit pretty much reflexively by flinching away from the impact. She didn't like physical contact very much.

"Indeed, superior equipment should present a major advantage. I predict… no, wish, because of your confidence issues, it is better to show hope than assurance lest you feel too pressured and nervous… I explained too much again, didn't I?" Shino asked, looking around at the three facepalms and a nervously giggling Hinata "Ahem, so I wish you a favourable statistical outcome. Hopefully my foot-in-mouth syndrome has managed to defuse some of your anxiety." Hinata smiled at that.

Since Hinata understood that she should demonstrate without her new gear first, she ran through some of the katas for the Gentle Fist, then activated her Byakugan and looked around, reporting her scan radius of two hundred meters. Then she threw some kunai and shuriken at the targets hung up around the training field and demonstrated her levels in the various academy skills and other things she'd picked up, such as stealth (e.g. Naruto Watching) and traps. The wink at Kiba and petting of Akamaru gave away the fact that her flower message of "I hate dogs" was not serious. Unfortunately, Kurenai had to explain to Kiba while Hinata demonstrated other skills that no, the wink wasn't a hint of favour toward him, just a note that she didn't actually hate dogs like her flower message said. Akamaru proceeded to mime peeing on the flowers to express his opinion of the message… though he didn't actually pee since the message was not for real. Also, in the Inuzuka packs, it was frowned upon to pee on things that their fellow dogs often enjoyed smelling.

Then the time came to put her new armour on, with some minor pointers from Hannah it was remarkably easy. "Unlike Aeon armour, Cybran armour isn't so good for using Psionics through, so you will need to work on energy capacity to use what you call techniques through it. From what Xav told me and what I learnt on my own about how Psionics works, it's basically a matter of growing your soul to be more energetic and thus bigger."

"There's a problem, Hannah-sama." Hinata said before the helmet went on, and Hannah stopped, holding Hinata's helmet. "I wore this yesterday because I didn't want to alarm the villagers with any units… but the armour makes my muscles feel weak and my reaction time feel slower… though it compensates by helping me move."

"…Don't tell me you people teach your kids to use Psionic energy… or chakra as you call it, to reinforce their muscles from a young age… until they can do it and thus actually WILL do it subconsciously?" Hannah stared at Kurenai, who frowned.

"Unfortunately, to allow children to keep up without damaging their physical growth too mu—" Kurenai blinked as she shifted a little, while Hinata and Kiba stumbled a bit… and Shino outright collapsed. The Aburame seemed to be a bit strained just pushing himself back up off the ground… "Shino, are you alright?"

"It's one of the worst weaknesses of the Aburame clan." The boy gritted out as he dragged himself back to his feet. "Due to our insects requiring space and chakra, our muscles occupy less volume than others, which results in needing to use chakra enhancement to move at a reasonable speed for a ninja. The insects are familiar enough with my scent and environment to not go feral with this, but I must demand that you never activate such a disruptor near our clan compound, lest some of the younger children be harmed by their symbionts."

Kurenai had also consciously registered what was wrong once she searched within herself, while Shino was talking. Once he finished, she explained for Kiba and Hinata, who seemed rather disoriented and in Hinata's case had visible pupils. "Chakra disruption… preventing shaping or even flow beyond the minimal flow pattern needed to sustain life…"

Hannah scratched her doll's head and explained the actual quantitative science—the ninja world seemed awfully qualitative in a lot of things for some reason…—behind the matter. "Actually Psionic energy isn't needed for life at all so long as enough neurons exist and are wired together well enough. It's a by-product, really, of intelligent life existing, but can be used to improve neural function once it exists. It is part of why the Aeon called us Cybrans abominations, because most of us had no level of Psionic energy they could detect with early sensors. After better sensors were invented… the name had already stuck."

"I'm guessing you have medical scanners in that armour too somewhere." Kurenai noted. "After all the modifications you went and loaded up last night." Really, yesterday it had looked just like Hinata's…

"I stacked all the support modifications I could think of putting on this instead of the combative ones, so yes, I do have improved medical sensors and a field surgeon suite, along with other gear. The Psi Disruptor I have emits an active field, instead of just being local and passive as is the default for Cybran armours… but still your armour shouldn't have affected you like that… ah, I have an inkling now. Put the helmet on and the internal and external Psionic environments will isolate themselves from one another, except active abilities going out from within the field…" She frowned as she thought of how passive sensors, presuming the Byakugan was passive, wouldn't get a return through the armour. "Uh… I'll have to calibrate it to allow your White Eye ability to work through it too. Alternatively, I could do the easier thing and fit an enhanced sensor suite onboard for you, and modify the helmet to display full sensor feeds across all arcs except through your neck, so that you could see it all when you activate your ability… I can do that in a few minutes if you wish, and then you can customize stuff like the mini-map display options. Calibrating it to let the White Eye through will take longer, much longer, and almost certainly take way more scans and such of your eyes, and your Clan's for that matter, than is diplomatically viable at this point in relations."

In other words, they hadn't either generated a shitload of trust between the two groups, or terrified the primitives into complete submission. The Coalition had had quite enough of bad First Contact events after Seraphim II and the Seraphim War it eventually led to as retaliation against human aggression, thank you very much. Good First Contacts, such as with the Cybran protectorate called the United Drell Nations, were very much preferable indeed… though that one had been very much stick-and-carrot, even after the "we just fixed your planet for free" bit. Sadly any establishment of being worthy friends tended to be over the top, and many in the Coalition lamented that compared to various fiction series, they were either hideously OP, or the fictions got into destroying stars for fun or higher levels. Even some of those the Coalition would be able to overwhelm, if they had no equivalent to nanolathing technology.

"I feel like you prefer one option for Hinata to the other." Kurenai observed dryly. "But I do admit the protective abilities are so high that even a total inability to use the Byakugan while wearing the armour may in fact be worthwhile, depending on circumstances."

"But… but… for a Hyuuga to not get to use their bloodline… that's like me getting a really bad clogged nose!" Kiba yelped.

Kurenai grimaced "Which is why we're going to train you in dealing with or at least surviving your weaknesses, Kiba, Shino. For example, Kiba might have to wear a gas mask and full helmet which dulls sound perception, and learn to fight without Akamaru. We can't have you being a one-trick-pony, no matter how good that trick is. Shino, the same applies to you with your insects. They could, instead of using any pesticides, simply use a mixture of various nerve gases and corrosive gases. It's just not possible to breed in adaptations to exposure to all possible chemicals in large doses biochemically, so putting up a barrier may be the best method of surviving hostile conditions."

"The clan does have some techniques that form such barriers over our skin, while our bugs barricade themselves inside…" Shino said slowly, almost grudgingly. "But they are considered quite advanced…"

"They will likely be useful at some point when we venture into hostile territory, which indeed should take quite a while… unless I enter you into the Chunin Exams next time they are held in Konoha, purely to expose you to outside options." Kurenai smiled.

"Glad you're not averse to exploiting Hinata's backup as risk management." Hannah nodded at the shorter woman.

Kurenai returned the nod "Glad I didn't have to explain it outright. Besides, if you wanted to do anything weird, you already would have done it. Alright, Hinata, you probably won't get accustomed to using the armour for a while yet, but take a few swings and some manoeuvres so we have some idea of what we can expect." Hannah started handing out protective goggles "Please don't tell me that comes with some explosive abilities." Kurenai said as she put the goggles on just in case.

"Not in the base form she has equipped right now, I've even removed all the weapons schematics." Hannah stated, while Hinata finally practiced on some targets.

The flying woodchips from Hinata punching most of the way through a tree (she'd relaxed in surprise and stopped) were much harder to dodge and move much faster than the tree falling over (she didn't stop soon enough). Then there were some broken boulders to deal with… the goggles were very nice to keep the dust away, though it turned out Shino's sunglasses were already a set of goggles. There was no heads-up display there though, so he accepted the gift once it was pointed out to him.

"On the subject of weapons…" Kurenai ventured once Hinata finished running some basic tests on her enhanced strength and speed… and managed to punch her helmet on one occasion due to not being used to the power armour functions.

"You are asking me to demonstrate the weapons Hinata might get her hands on if I drop them?"

"If you would be so kind, then please."

There was a momentary delay before the avatar nodded "…Very Well. My husband has a Chariot Tier 1 Light Air Transport coming down now with our infantry weapon selection, as I don't have the full set with me and it was the most compact of the transports."

The shadow that snapped into existence above them must have been there the whole time, which made Kurenai wonder internally just how good Coalition stealth technology was. The four natives watched as the disc-like transport with its distinct lobed structure descended until it extended its landing gear and touched down. The boarding ramp opened, and along the internal walls were stored various weapons that had assorted aesthetics, which Hinata recognized well enough but were still mysterious to the others.

"The United Earth Federation infantry weapons tend to vary between pretty general-purpose and ridiculously specialized, but are universally relatively low in muzzle velocity." She pointed at a boxy looking weapon with a long barrel and a bunch of selector levers under a covered side, for manual use if not linked to armour. "For example, this Railgun is good for combat at just about any range, and the ammunition selection can range from an explosive squash head slug, which can be used for high-angle support, to an old fashioned hypervelocity dart, usually made from depleted uranium, for direct fire, or anywhere in between depending on what you need." Then she pointed to another, less boxy weapon "The Plasma Rifle is much better at making things blow up on impact, but doesn't give as many options and cannot do high-angle fire over obstacles. In exchange, it has considerably less weight and recoil. Then there is the Gauss Pistol, which shoots tiny darts," Cue a relatively small, one-handed weapon. Then she pulled out a large pack "This backpack is, when coupled with the Plasma Rifle, a Flamethrower, which can be anywhere between a really big gas-powered blowtorch, a long-ranged hose of flaming liquid, or a lava projector if you want to use a more solid form. It tends to do better than the plasma rifle at actually setting things on fire over larger areas, due to the plasma rifle simply being TOO hot to linger long enough."

Then she pulled out her personal favourites "These are my personal favourites among the infantry weapons, the Particle Rifle, with its standard red and black Cybran aesthetics, and the counterpart, the Laser Rifle, with these smooth and graceful Aeon lines." The briefing continued from there.

"If you are going to actually exhibit the effectiveness of those, I think we will need to bring the other Jonin over to observe…" Kurenai said once they were finished. "And given what I've heard about their female students…" She meant that in several senses.

* * *

 _Approximately this time, ROOT HQ_

Danzo suddenly lost track of his thoughts in the middle of speaking as he sensed a great disturbance. It was as if there was a grave threat of some sort to the sanity, or perhaps even existence, of Konoha as a whole… perhaps it was the new emissary that had shown up out of nowhere? But… instinct told him to stay as far away from that woman as possible, and Danzo's instincts were very good… at self-preservation. His rants about patriotism were usually to cover up this fact and his very treasonous activities, after all.

* * *

 _Forecast, sometime in the future…_

" _Well, Oromo was the first thing I thought of when I thought of wanderers of a different religion going somewhere with strong warriors and settling." Kaguya scratched her head "And compared to how I used to look before I had to adopt certain modifications to gain an appropriate amount of distance from these superstitious natives, I looked like a hag back when that brat was born… hence Hagoromo…"_

* * *

 **A/N:** Anyone who doesn't get **Supreme Commander: Mass Effect** vibes yet should note the use of " **assuming direct control** " in this chapter and the **United Drell Nations** … I suddenly have a desire to have the actual Reaper War be fought behind the scenes post-ME1. Coalition tech is insane for Zerg Rush purposes… despite Paragons "only" being able to piss out 20,000 tons of raw mass per second. Most of the Mass Effect 2 plot would be Hannah just trolling her kids and their friends with fake stuff to give them more time to hook up with hot aliens, and showcasing for the rest of the Coalition just how mind-numbingly stupid the Citadel governments are. The gender ratio of the Coalition is still screwed up from how many liberated Symbionts were female and grown in artificial wombs for… assorted purposes, so polyamorous relationships are a matter of consensus among the grouping… but are considered inefficient for the majority of people as they rarely work for long.

Ah, I'm imagining Hannah's scream of impotent rage when she sees Tsunade, or even Samui… after judicious rage at Ino for binding her chest when young. The young Cybran believes in not messing around with her natural appearance too much, because she has no use for men made stupid just by a nice set of boobs. Still, being overlooked N times by male friends as just one of the guys really, REALLY got to her… And let's not talk about what happens if they happen to come into contact with my SI Archives universe in some way, shape or form. She'll be glad her counterpart is so powerful, but those boobs… the rage will be REAL.

As you should have realized last chapter, this version of Naruto doesn't need to overcome his inner demons. He's already assimilated/become a good share of them.

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	9. The Ascent of Madness

**A/N:** Go read my new Naruto fic, **"Measuring the World"** , which is my opinion of my search on Sand-to-Leaf distance estimates are and how huge the Naruto planet would have to be as a result (e.g. "the Elemental Nations are over 17 million kilometers across because it took a minute for A travelling at light speed to reach Madara", which is so stupid an estimate I do not have words for it).

Gamabunta is apparently 300 feet tall, that's 90 meters. He is known to be significantly shorter than the Nine-Tails, so Kurama will be set to about 200 meters tall at the shoulder when on all fours. Gamabunta being able to pin him is still realistic, as toads are very effective at occupying their clearance volume (e.g. box of length-width-height) compared to a slender fox like Kurama, and the limb lengths in the anime scene where Gamabunta restrained Kurama (at full size and strength) indicates Kurama's legs are no longer than 75 meters per segment (e.g. forearm, upper arm), so 200 meters overall to the shoulder is reasonable. Of course, this does mean Galactic Colossi and beyond them Ythothas ever actually showing themselves near a ninja village would scare the occupants shitless…

* * *

Chapter 9: The Ascent of Madness

(Read: "The Ass End of Madness")

 _Contact Day +3, Afternoon of March 28, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

"You know, I think I could really use your help with some personal issues…" Asuma mumbled after he surveyed the damage to the targets… or what remained of them. This was, understandably, AFTER Kurenai gave the weapons back to Hannah. He'd wanted to take a close look after Hannah took a few shots, but then she'd offered the weapons, set on single-shot with each pull of the trigger, to Kurenai to see if she wanted to try things out. Gai, Asuma and Kakashi had taken the hint from the smoking craters where the targets had once been, and taken cover far, far behind them… just in case. This was very wise, as the recoil of the weapons was quite significant and it was only due to being very cautious that Kurenai hadn't blown too many holes in the surrounding environment beyond what she was actually trying for.

"I don't think your girlfriend would like that very much." Hannah looked toward Kurenai, who looked away, breaking the curious gaze she had previously pointed at Asuma while he was staring at and talking to the new woman.

Asuma pretended to completely ignore the accusation of his gross failure to keep his relationship with Kurenai secret "No, I mean you're obviously big and strong enough that you might convince Ino to stop dieting."

"Sakura has the same problem." Kakashi noted.

Hannah blinked the eyes on her avatar very pointedly "Let me get this straight… two trainee soldiers are dieting… and this was tolerated how? What's worse they're still growing kids and they are permitted to diet? Kurenai, why didn't they ask you about this? You're a mature and attractive woman, they'd probably freak out over me being a giant and advocating healthy eating, unless I bring my husband out to show them what being smart, tough and big can earn a girl! And I'm not about to put him at risk for something this petty…"

Xavier Fran was very much a pretty boy to say the least, thanks to a mix of augmentations and regular Psionic rejuvenation therapy. That was the Aeon way, whereas the Cybran Nation relied on their not-so-nano "nanites" which were part of their bodies to help correct errant cells and repair DNA damage. The UEF relied on often more extensive genetic modifications and periodic mixes of various treatments to stave off aging.

Fran was also rich from his long career, cheerful, and generally a nice guy. On the other hand, all accusations and rumours of him trailing sparkles should be pointed toward Rhiza, from a prank when both were off-duty, originally dating from over two hundred years ago. Sadly, being good-looking had its downsides, in that the sparkling rumour _just wouldn't die_ … especially because Rhiza was better than him at pranking and hacking, and gave refreshers to the rumour occasionally afterward, every few decades or so. She was overdue for the most recent refresher of the prank, but that was likely due to the Aeon Civil War and taking the office of Avatar of War.

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, we didn't know until now, and it turned out the Academy did their best, but there were just too many students and too few teachers…"

"We'd have to take them out of this village though for a minor training trip, because I'm not risking exposing my husband to anyone who might be watching unless he personally wants to take a hike."

"I doubt we could get permission to bring so many clan heirs outside the village at once until they're all approved for C-rank missions." Asuma cut in.

"On that note of training the kids, I'm reasonably sure Hinata will crack soon." Kurenai remarked. "She has been holding up remarkably well to the tremendous stress of suddenly being a local guide and diplomatic contact for an immensely superior power, but her confidence issues and such are still more than present and the moment the shock fades down enough I fear she will not do so well with the strain… the alternative, that she is as bipolar as her mother was, is too horrifying to contemplate."

"Well, with how she tended to speak we thought there were some meekness problems, but she spoke more than clearly enough when presenting the situation to the Hokage…" Hannah wondered aloud. "And I thought the whole Yamato Nadeshiko bullshit that this planet probably subscribes to was meant to be more than just bipolar?" Soft and caring but manipulative and vicious as needed… also known as an absurd ideal born of an obsessively patriarchal…

For politeness and because it is not historically relevant mental commentary, some of this part of the mission records in the "Naruto World" as it was later labelled, have been redacted. Notably, Uzumaki Tayuya was later consulted in improving the diction (and found it almost impressive, before adding to it), and Hidan would have been consulted if he'd been available and less of a rabid dog that had to be put down.

"Well, the desired stereotype…" the black-haired woman with bigger boobs thought of Hitomi Hyuuga and how she was usually described as a Yamato Nadeshiko (e.g. bipolar lunatic) taken to such an extreme that dissuaded others from trying for the ideal for years. "Yes, I suppose it is… What about Hinata's eye contact issues? Did you notice any indication of the problem there?" Kurenai knew that was one of the big issues Hinata had… and one of the girl's greatest regrets, having accidentally peeked on her parents once and then not making eye contact with her mother until Hitomi was caught up in the Uchiha Massacre. They'd never found a body, but the Hyuuga Clan was less than friendly toward Sasuke after the incident all the same. Itachi's legend had mostly been built not from killing his clan, but by somehow overcoming Uchiha Mikoto and Hyuuga Hitomi, who along with Uzumaki Kushina had been considered the Three Lunatics of Konoha. They were considered counterpoint to the Sannin and vastly less merciful, as the Sannin might only kill you or in Orochimaru's case experiment on you, while the Three Lunatics…

Due to public mental health concerns among the locals, the Coalition was not able to (within polite parameters i.e. without scanning their archives) get our hands on any further information on this subject. The locals would like to politely apologize for this hindrance of our efforts toward understanding each other and cultural exchange. However, they did inform us that Hitomi would probably eat Hiashi alive (starting with Hiashi Junior and very small bites) if she knew how Hinata had turned out without her. Later events would prove that this was not quite true, even if Hiashi would once again experience finding himself suddenly clinging to a ceiling corner like Orochi… AHEM… a silky-haired spider without realizing he had even moved.

"Ah… crap, Ariel, Hackett and I aren't so good at reading people as Xav and Seth are, I didn't notice anything in particular about her eyes and where they looked except her bloodline… which still shows a pupil if a Psi Disruptor is active in the area by the way." Hannah scratched her avatar's head. "Currently, Psi Disruption is automatically set to off on all our units so long as we are operating on this planet. We may activate them on a case-by-case basis though, but only with friendly or neutral forces nearby all in good condition. We don't want any non-hostiles, alive or in soul form, being mentally harmed due to the delicate psionic balance of a badly wounded person being affected… though my armour's Disruptor is actually too weak to start hurting exposed souls unless I'm pretty much wrapped around them." She skirted around the sensitive topic of resurrection technology, which was why the Seraphim War only cost a little over a trillion human lives. The Seraphim had lacked Psi Disruption Technology and the Order hadn't informed them… though the UEF still bled badly due to Order cooperation with the Seraphim.

Since she didn't seem inclined to speak further, and it sounded like how chakra disruption tags worked anyhow… Gai addressed some disturbing rumours he'd heard "My eternal rival! I heard that you committed the most uncool act of pulling a third lunch-box out from between your buttocks to give to your students after the Bell Test!" Kurenai knew exactly where this came from and was going, so she didn't comment on how the men were acting like imbeciles.

"Nobody ever thinks to put storage seals in their back pockets these days?" Kakashi growled, not appreciating the joke very much. He and Gai settled into glaring at one another.

"The last publicly known time someone did that was Kakashi, who accepted a 'gift' from Uzumaki Naruto when he was guarding the kid once. It contained a large amount of sealed dog crap from the Inuzuka kennels." Asuma explained to the puzzled-looking women present. "Gai had the great misfortune to be standing more or less behind Kakashi when the timer expired and the seal released its contents. Since then he has been strongly against the use of back pockets as storage seal holders… though it also vindicated his choice of outfit as a simple rinse was enough to clean him up enough to actually take it off… and burn it."

"Unfortunately dog crap and wolf dung burn the same way, with a lot of thick smoke." Kakashi supplied helpfully. "Gai cried a waterfall of manly tears, complete with probably Water Ninjutsu aid, or maybe just Flames of Youth, Water Edition… as he watched a set of his beloved jumpsuit literally go up in smoke. I… didn't appreciate replacing my pants… and socks… and shoes… and the amount of scrubbing that was needed to polish my reputation back up. I got over it, I don't think Gai has yet though." Gai rolled his eyes, as it was mostly a matter of perceived sanitation. On the other hand, Kakashi said that Naruto had probably figured his ANBU mask, hence the dog crap… then again not too many ANBU had gravity-defying silver hair…

"It puts new meaning to the phrase 'shit a brick', that's for sure." Hannah commented.

"That is an interesting turn of phrase, Hannah-san." Gai struck a thinking pose just to make his eternal rival roll his eyes… and succeeded.

"Why thank you!" The armoured woman beamed.

Meanwhile, Asuma was being uncouth… "Kakashi, would I be correct in saying that the lunch that tasted like ass went to Uzumaki Naruto?" Given the kid's tendencies and how badly he'd humiliated Kakashi more times than the kid probably even knew, he wouldn't put it past the Hatake to take exceedingly petty revenge on the boy who had somehow added catnip to his ANBU equipment more times than anyone could remember.

"I suspect your girlfriend would be annoyed at the insinuation that something tasting like ass is a bad thing." Kakashi shot back. Kurenai mimed vomiting at the idea until he added that "Hannah-san, since the Coalition is much more advanced than our world, might I make the guess that far more perverted sexual techniques have been invented and used there, due to sanitation and health concerns being taken care of?"

Hannah's jaw muscles flexed, before she stated frostily that… "I think this conversation has gotten a bit too weird for me. I for one am a very traditional and boring girl compared to many of my peers, so I do not appreciate being restrained or pain to any significant extent. I cannot even tolerate spanking for fun."

"Damn, that means your husband doesn't get to experiment with a whole lot of things… I feel sorry for him." Kakashi bemoaned his fellow man's suffering.

"Why did you think I bought this? I might be rather cowardly, but using this sex doll he can do whatever interesting things he wants to try… though I'll be monitoring its condition to prevent anything too dangerous, even as a joke." Hannah smiled dangerously.

"How can he be sure if it's you or a doll then?"

"Because I am exceedingly dull in preferences with my own body and like to take good care of it. Oral is about as far as I will tolerate giving or getting in terms of not-as-intended mucous membrane contact to my actual body. I can experience the others in a sanitary fashion using this… sorry for spoiling the surprise, Xav… ah, sorry, carrying two conversations at the same time isn't something I'm very good at yet." Just because she was descended from people engineered to be very sensitive and easy to please as a power trip for their owners…

* * *

 _Same time…_

"Don't even start, Xav."

"I love you too, Hannah." Her husband made a kissing face at the camera.

"And I'm glad that's the case, even if I don't measure up to your first and second wives…" Hannah realized she'd stuck her foot in her mouth again "Sorry."

The man shook his head "I've gotten over them by now. It's okay…"

Fran was a widower twice over, which was why he was so hesitant to have more children, because all his previous attempts at having children had been ended by one revenge-obsessed UEF maniac by the name of Zaeed Massani. The man had retired already, and was protected directly by the Coalition (with a direct warning to him by Avatar of War Rhiza and General Hall)… but Fran still had a strong desire to hunt him down and deal with him, terminally. Even if it was true that the man's parents and many of his siblings had died during Aeon incursions that Fran was part of the vanguard for, he had only been the pilot in charge of tying up UEF forces. He even did that part in a very defensive manner until all civilians were gone from his operating area, but the UEF pilots seemed too intent on eliminating him most of the time, probably due to his long service and kill count. Some men just couldn't let go… and Fran was dangerously aware that he seemed to be on the verge of becoming one of them.

It would be this awareness that would later lead to him having a good laugh instead of flying into a rage when he learnt his son was sticking it to Massani's daughter, but that was a story for a much, MUCH later time.

* * *

 _Konoha, same time_

"Kurenai?"

"I'm guessing you're about to ask if I have any idea why the men are talking about having nosebleeds when very suddenly exposed to something arousing." The smaller black-haired woman said. "Given I'm usually the role of the stick in the mud, I too am surprised that they are talking about this with me present."

"We're just trying to make sure you don't get too surprised. It's actually one of the Perversion Consequence Evasion Techniques passed down since time immemorial, to pretend to pass out after ejecting some blood from one's nose and flying back. This allows one to evade or at least greatly reduce the damage of being kicked in the balls too. Most women let things slide if it seems you've already been punished into unconsciousness and lost some blood." Asuma explained, while Gai was busy commenting on how un-Youthful it was… then admitted with a scowl upon Kakashi's prompt that preventing the blood from going south was indeed critically important, if for nothing else than to keep his jumpsuit comfortable. "Kurenai… please keep this secret?"

Kurenai shrugged "With how often men in a hurry to perform the Technique, or who are doing it reflexively, forget what is behind them, unless of course there are sharp things they keep mental track of, it is better they keep performing it. The lumps on the backs of their heads will be a good lesson." Anyone who had the chakra to perform that evasive technique had enough for bodily reinforcement to not risk cracking their skull on something blunt behind them, like a wall, or a pole, the most they'd do was knock themselves out for a few minutes, like how possums played dead for a few hours. As a side note, the manoeuvre had some popularity among civilians too… hence the standard move now included chakra reinforcement of the head and neck, to improve ninja-civilian relations by reducing civilian casualties.

"That is exceedingly amusing." Asuma and Kurenai both shrugged at Hannah's response (after she finished laughing).

"So, about psychological help for our students…" Kakashi finished talking with Gai and addressed their guest again, thinking about just how badly it was needed.

* * *

 _Earlier, with Team 7_

"My ambition, because it will come true, is to bring back my clan, whether literally or out of wherever the hell they got stuck this time," This brought a wary look from Kakashi "and kick the ass of, ad infinitum, a certain man, for trying too hard to scar me for life and commit suicide by younger brother." Sasuke stated, before flinching back when Kakashi moved his hand up to his headband to check if it was an impostor.

"I was under the impression that Uchiha Itachi massacred the clan four years ago?" Kakashi commented, prodding for answers as to why Sasuke wasn't the aloof avenger he was described as. The boy was aloof… and focused on training, but he didn't seem to have too much in the way of vengeful tendencies, although Kakashi supposed if one tilted their head and squinted really hard…

Sasuke burst out laughing in a very hysterical fashion, very pointedly not looking at The Sharingan Thief. "Yeah… no. He might never have had enough of a childhood to learn what humanity meant, but the person who could take down Mom OR Hitomi Hyuuga so quickly in single combat hasn't been born yet. Both of them put together? They could probably make the First Hokage shit himself and run just to escape form the insanity."

Kakashi did not in fact _choose_ not to argue that point, since there were very good reasons he'd never felt the need to tell Naruto any stories in his infancy about his mother… because he hadn't quite repressed those memories yet. And the other two of the Three Lunatics of Konoha… YE GODS, HE THOUGHT HE'D MANAGED TO REPRESS THOSE! Then again, Orochimaru had gone insane and later left Konoha due to the Three Lunatics, according to legend. There was also the rumour that the Third had taken pity on him and let him get away instead of killing him in Konoha and letting the two remaining lunatics do who knew what to his soul.

Sasuke continued, ignoring his teacher's trembling efforts to force scarring memories back into the hellhole they crawled out from "I have no idea what could have caused him to decide that faking the event would be a good idea, but I plan to become powerful enough that he wouldn't be embarrassed being defeated by me. That should be enough to make him give me some answers… and then probably partly obligate his suicidal tendencies depending on how terminally stupid those answers are. Afterward I can search for Mom and Aunt Hitomi, who are the only reason I wouldn't kill Itachi at any point for being too much of a dumbass." He shuddered at the thought of what his mother would do to him as punishment if he killed Itachi "They probably got high again and did something hilarious but stupid, but I wonder why they aren't back yet."

The last time Mikoto, Hitomi and Kushina had gotten high together, on Nine-Tails Chakra in that particular incident, the Hyuuga Compound had to be re-relocated. They'd somehow moved the whole compound onto the plateau behind the Hokage Monument and left all the house foundations where it used to be. No one, not even the three most likely to be responsible, figured out what they did or how they did it. A certain hand seal and a smiling look at the abdomens of the Elders were more than enough to shut them all up, since the memory of Orochimaru's continued anal incontinence was too fresh. So they quietly allowed the women to move the houses back to where they ought to go, and rejoin them to the foundations by means that no one particularly wanted to figure out.

For obvious reasons, even before that incident, the Uchiha and Hyuuga Clans had been less than pleased at the two women's very close friendship. That lasted until the two managed to scar the souls of enough of the two clans for eternity (by assorted means) and became subject to various peace offerings in the form of clan heirs. Breaking logic and all reason enough to have an Eternal Kaleidoscope Sharingan and its Byakugan counterpart (previously a nursery legend) without transplant, other augmentation, etc. was quite enough to entitle the two to whatever males form their respective clans they wanted. Assassination attempts on them and their buddy Kushina to try to stop the madness that followed them like a miasma wherever they went tended to go… poorly, to say the very least.

Please note that Neji had only been forced into the fully applied Caged Bird Seal AFTER Hitomi went missing during the Uchiha Massacre (and wasn't that a doozy in terms of rumours about the Hyuuga-Uchiha relations…). Hizashi had died years ago, and Hiashi's influence without his wife's overpowering might wasn't enough to protect his possible eldest, despite Hinata's insistence on calling him "big brother" being genetically 100% accurate. If Hiashi had been present at Team 7's meeting, he would likely have thrown his backing behind Sasuke's cause, because unless Hitomi really had taken Mikoto out, finding Mikoto meant finding his wife. On the other hand, it might also mean the Hyuuga would need half a new compound once she finished punishing the Main House for branding her eldest. Er, scratch that, maybe more than half, since Neji had gone full emo after and hated the Main-Branch separation to the point of hating Hinata. Some of Hitomi's insanity had been inherited by Neji, and it wasn't the good part as it hopefully would be for Hinata…

Then again given Hiashi and Hizashi had had a major fight over whose child Hitomi's first was, the insanity wasn't just from Mom. The agreement came after she gave them mild concussions by grabbing them by the head and shoving them together to knock the stupid out. It stated that if the firstborn looked more like the men, then it was (due to flipping a coin) Hizashi's, and if it looked more like her then it was Hiashi's. She hadn't counted on her going missing with the Uchiha Massacre and therefore Neji getting branded with the Caged Bird Seal just because of who his father was recorded as. As for who the fathers of Hitomi's first two children actually were respectively, well, given Hiashi had a tendency to secretly borrow Hinata's Icha-Icha collection, and Hizashi had been much more open about such things… none of them knew.

As for the paddle the males' father had bought Hitomi to punish Hiashi with for activating his angry twin's Curse Seal even momentarily, it had been used to assist three Elders in ascending to the afterlife as quick as they seemed to be asking for. This was after Hitomi checked and ascertained that Neji's first seal was of the juvenile and less harmful variety. They didn't have the balls to even think of trying to put the full seal on the kid until after her disappearance. Hiashi still shuddered at the possible consequences of his wife returning and finding her firstborn marked. Perhaps the entire group of Hyuuga Elders and Hiashi himself would be forced to try to imitate Orochimaru's hunt for a solution to impaired chakra network (AKA crippled soul) type anal incontinence. Why the man hadn't just resigned himself to investing in diapers was beyond Hiashi's understanding.

 _ **AHEM, perhaps the records folks might stop yapping (and laughing) about who stuck their dick in who (and other shitty topics) and actually narrate history that actually mattered on even a local level?**_

Er… yes… so, where were we?

* * *

 _Contact Day +4, Morning of March 29, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

"No, Kakashi, you have a team full of head cases." She very carefully avoided the fact that Kakashi and Gai were more nuts than the average ACU pilot, probably because they got into the business younger. "And I don't want to inform the pink one of how such an exotic hair colour might get her kidnapped by a crazy tourist to try to use as a trophy, or at least steal some of her tissue to make clones with. I ESPECIALLY do not wish to tell her the fact that Cybran ACU pilots interpret any settlement, planet, whatever that has gone nuts enough to start enslaving any significant fraction of their women as broodmares and commodities, as a good vacation assignment to purge."

Other than one case where it was the males being enslaved instead—that town had been nuts enough to go for the infamy of being first to do so—every single damned incident since the Quantum Age began where one group was enslaved was of females… or futanari (physiologically modified, usually starting from a female genetic template). Given the large proportion of Cybran ACU pilots, mostly female and futanari but with more than enough males among them, who started off as liberated sex slaves, well… "I don't think she can handle the thought of skinning rabid men alive for fun and scorching their souls while we are at it." Thankfully the UEF had taken care of their worst offenders themselves, and after Rhianne's exploiting Black Sun, slavery was now exceedingly socially stigmatized. Otherwise the Coalition would surely not have held together despite most of those who escaped Rhianne's Psionic blasting having been purged for siding with the Order of the Illuminate and QAI…

Kakashi just grunted as he approached the woman at a few more angles to… not just get his book back anymore, but to see what she was capable of. So far she was fending him off with only one hand, he wanted to see if she was good enough to keep the book in place enough for reading while fending him off with both hands. "I think it would be a good idea to expose Sakura to the horrors she might encounter in our profession early." Curses on how he couldn't use too much force lest the book be damaged…

"That's nice, but I'm going to help Kurenai's boyfriend first with his fan-girl infestation…" Hannah's avatar said while reading a certain orange-covered book with the other hand not occupied with staving off Kakashi's not-very-forceful efforts. It had been surprisingly easy to scan and then reclaim the book out from the man's pocket due to their very close proximity… and then fabricate it in her pocket, as a joke. The man didn't seem like he was trying too hard to get it back, for fear of annoying the ambassador, though he was basically repeatedly approaching from every direction and orientation he could as they moved through town toward Asuma's team's chosen training ground. He was probably trying to figure out how she'd seemingly teleported the book from his pocket, because it meant other things could be teleported too.

…Hmm…

…The plot of the literature was surprisingly good, despite the typical problems with a computer translator and utter failure of most idioms to transfer… and the erotica was quite good too. "Maybe someday, once this is translated into a language I can actually read smoothly, I can role-play some of these scenes with my husband… no ropes or chains though. The Cybran Nation would go nuts if anyone caught wind that their darling prodigy let one of the oldest living Aeon pilots tier her up."

Kakashi hummed, ceasing his efforts to regain his book "You don't look like a prodigy."

"Why would you say that?" She kept reading.

"You don't look at people like a prodigy. Iruka, Naruto's academy teacher and brother figure, explained to me once how he could recognize prodigies at a glance. Prodigies don't understand people, they don't understand others' emotions or motives. Not until they are quite old can they learn how people in general function. I agree with his assessment, because I was one, and looking back… he was completely right. It took me until I was twenty to even begin to understand what normal people might be thinking, and why they did the things they did."

"I'm twenty-seven."

"Perhaps, then… but with what you told us of how your wars are fought… I cannot see how you would have been forced into enough social interaction to learn to go through the motions, then learn enough psychology to start understanding people." Kakashi was eying how fast she was reading the book warily.

She shrugged as she flipped another page. "I treat war as just pixels on a screen, which might be why I can be really good at it while still being fairly normal socially. Of course after I racked up my first few megadeaths a lot of my old friends became a lot more distant, but that's understandable." Kakashi twitched at the translator reminding him of the term "megadeath" being casually used by the guest. "I had to put down more 'prodigies' of the type you were talking about than I could count."

 _And that's not counting the pro-QAI lot who weren't fanatical enough to be killed right away, but who instead got locked up in a simulation that was cut off from the Cybran Network at large, and died in the simulation as their bodies' lack of maintenance gave out on them without their minds ever realizing they were dying… even though they knew full well it was a simulation they willingly chose to be locked into. We Cybrans are no less foolish than the other factions, I suppose…_ She thought, not having any idea how ridiculous the irony in that thought was until later, MUCH later…

Hannah continued reading, with Kakashi strolling along waiting for her to return his book. Hannah could see this Jiraiya person making some good money in their cultural exchange if he could find a good translator. In a post-scarcity society, while still a metric of success, money, used to encourage people to actually do stuff and not cover planets with plush toys or something comparably stupid (not that it hadn't been done on a few barren worlds as jokes…), was a distant second to popularity/infamy. Thus trade would probably involve supplying mostly perishable goods the locals found valuable, to not crash any markets for, say, diamonds or other scarcity-dominated societies' valuable raw materials.

Eh, well, the occasional thing wouldn't hurt, so long as Kurenai pretended well enough that it was a glass ornamental gift instead of a diamond kunai.

That thought died with a mental screech as they came into line of sight of Asuma's team. "I only see one Genin here who looks like he could run a lap around the whole village and do more physical activity afterward." She grumbled as Asuma waved at them, and his Genin finally noticed the towering, armoured guest. Admittedly, Konoha was quite a large village, so that run was well over ten kilometers, but still…

Kakashi's eye narrowed at this reasonably accurate judgement "Chouji?"

"The overweight one, yes." Though her mind labelled him as, well, anyone who was familiar with the Coalition would know which specific unit most overweight males found the least amusing as a nickname. Chouji's eventual reaction upon learning what a Fatboy was, well, that was a later story. "Only he looks like he has the stamina and potentially hidden muscle needed to do that…" Suddenly she shoved the book at Kakashi, who had been expecting her to return it around this time, before yelling quite loudly enough to make him violently cover his ears, all three Genin jump, and Asuma twitch. "HOLY SHIT ARE THOSE EARRINGS?"

Kakashi had to remind himself that since it was an avatar, it could be louder than humans had any right being. The thought that this woman was the one now supplying Naruto with fresh vegetables—how the hell did they get grown that fast in that facility anyhow?—perhaps because they were similarly loud was too horrifying to think about for too long.

She detached her left arm armour, commenting to Kakashi "no point accidentally breaking her arm when checking for muscle tone after all…" The skin on her arm changed colour before Kakashi's eyes, to a dull mottled green-brown forest camouflage pattern "Hey, you obvious-looking people! You're in a mostly wooded country, aren't you? Where the hell is your summer camo? Failing that, since at least the boys look like they can fit in with a crowd with minimal effort and changes in outfit, young lady, why are you wearing such bright purple clothes? And I really hope those damned bandages don't go up too damned far!" She blared clear across the training field while strolling toward them. Kakashi had decided to stay on the other side to protect his hearing, and Asuma was looking increasingly like he wished he could get away with standing where Kakashi was if that volume was going to continue. Well, at least she probably wouldn't scar/scare them for life like Anko almost certainly would… He probably wouldn't have invited Kurenai's friends to help him if it had been a matter of Anko or Yugao… because either one would probably kill his Genin faster than helping them.

"Wow, she's rude." The blonde girl grumbled.

"And huge." Chouji observed.

Ino huffed "Chouji, that there could be taken as rude given your clan's interpretation of huge."

Chouji glared at his teammate "You of all people should be familiar with Akimichi techniques! And look at Asuma-sensei next to her!" Admittedly, some of it was probably the armour, but Asuma Sarutobi at 191 centimeters (plus shoe thickness) was still somewhat shorter than the armoured woman. The only reason they were sure it was a woman was because of the armour, which they recognized from when Kurenai and the foreign diplomat came to pick up Team 8.

Ino rolled her eyes at his sensitivity on the matter "Yeah, yeah, I know…"

Unfortunately, their jokes were severely underestimating the person Asuma had brought to do the nagging aspect of his duties as Jonin-sensei.

* * *

 _Forecast, sometime a couple decades down the road…_

" _We were under the impression something along the lines of 'call us Legion, for we are many' would be more suitable than… whatever obscure reference 'Shino' is." The Geth platform said, miming scratching its head as many organics of various species tended to do when confused, perhaps to stimulate blood flow to the scalp and the head in general…_

" _Well, then, Legion is a good name, I suppose, Shino Aburame is a friend of our Aunt Hinata's. He has a special trait involving housing symbiotic insects that live within his body, and often communicates with his insects for consensus, so we thought a hive mind concept might be applied to you too" John (the most nondescript and common name his mother could think of) Shepard shrugged._

 _Legion had a bad feeling about this, as if hearing it would make the Salarian goddess claim the Geth fabricated look like nothing in comparison. Legion would be very dismayed to find he was right to have this sudden impression. Then he chose to voice the results of his internet search anyways._

* * *

 **A/N:** By the way the Chunin Exams were (I heard) on July 1 in the anime, usually a bit later but the 3rd wanted to move it up a bit. I could see Naruto getting impatient after 9 months as a Genin, but I think I'm going to give him a pretty packed schedule before Kakashi snaps and shoves him in just to open his anti-reading eyes a bit.

I can't wait until we get to dealing with human trafficking (cough Land of Waves in a few months cough), among other things, and start talking about how the Coalition deals with slavers, and the demand side too… very, very terminally (see the UEF Slave Owner Purge partly mentioned in passing previously, conducted in significant part by a group of relatively zealous UEF ACU pilots). Contact with the Citadel Races will be hilarious in terms of "Yes, we just did a genocide of about half the Batarian species and put the rest under our jurisdiction, what of it? Might makes right after all…"

Oh, and I can't wait until a certain someone (Tenten) finds out that hairstyle preferences tend to last through reincarnations.

 **Anyone who doesn't realize what Impure World Resurrection implies for Coalition resurrection tech (if we combine the two)…**

REVIEW PLEASE!


	10. Male Maturity Issues

A/N: It's hard to love your sensei's son much when he semi-regularly, for years on end, pranks you with horrible things like catnip in your gear (you're a famed dog-lover), gifts of dog crap in said gear, _drawing clothes into Icha-Icha_ … Honestly, Minato should just be proud of his student for never trying to throttle the brat.

The Elite Four use customized ACUs with additional blueprint slots fitted onboard, hence they can field the standard selection, plus a few regular personal choices, as well as field-test ALL the actually experimental units that are either designed by them (astonishingly many given how complex unit design can be) or have been forwarded from the actual design crews for testing. However, please note that field-testing takes a bit more time than standard roster building, to extract the schematics each time. So, after initial simulations, there are field-tests, units are tested AGAIN in a virtual environment in simulator matches before being fielded in actual ACU battles as standard construction databanks.

I originally wanted to put off revealing Fran's kill count to talking to Naruto after Wave and make most of this chapter into a data dump on alternative and prototype units. However, I thought this chapter needed a little more actual meat and development than to be 100% data dump like Ch 4.

Then I removed the data dump.

* * *

Chapter 10: Male Maturity Issues

 _Contact Day +4, March 29, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)_

 _Earth Calendar: November 4, 3849 AD_

While her avatar was trundling along after the locals, Hannah was also, for lack of better terms, otherwise occupied, with a very particular group of formerly three but now (ugh…) four pains in the ass.

"No, Seth, most of what the locals call Wind Country being uninhabited desert is no reason to test out your firepower improvements to the Vulthuum and Vishuum, Vishthuum, whatever you call it…" It actually went by both since half the Seraphim commanders couldn't be bothered to remember the designers had mashed the two sounds together and thus became one of the first Coalition designs that had multiple nicknames "designs… even if the Republics really want a competitive Heavy Gunship design as soon as possible and a Tier 3 Air Transport competitive with the Continental… Steven, what the hell are you and David doing over there with those Longswords?" The venerable Broadsword design had been changed enough over the years that they—literally they, as Hackett and David had worked together on the redesign, with feedback from a few other notable UEF names—felt a name change was in order… along with a major redesign. Unfortunately it wasn't quite good enough for standardized use yet, so a less ambitiously updated Broadsword was still the standard, though Hackett and David were obviously still trying to improve it.

… Hannah listened to Steven's grumbling response to her question.

…"Just because I probably scared Kakashi into talking to Hinata's family about what we do on Trash Duty by mentioning some of the tamer means we use doesn't mean you can troll around like that! At least my stunts are less obvious than huge expanses of melted glass!"

"Ah come on, it's not like we can't reclaim them and replace the sand… though it wouldn't be good for the local ecology, which is why we're only using certain areas our scans determine to be relatively devoid of local life, and avoid killing off uncommon varieties of life too." Steven dismissed.

The real and tragic reason why the Elite Four was half male and half female (before Fran and later David came in) was to make sure there was always one woman on duty who could babysit the shenanigans of the boys. David Anderson was considered one of the steadiest UEF SCU pilots available, and had been present at Operation Overlord, the surprise assault on the Quantum Arch, so he had been assigned as Hackett's Support Commander to try to calm the wild-child of a man. Unfortunately, boys and their tendency to play with their toys meant that they really needed more females to be assigned, as soon as possible, to Hannah and Seth's retinues. After all, Hannah could only do it part-time as she had her own base to manage, and Ariel keeping the other boys in line while Xav managed the Aeon units on the field (and Hannah slept) was…

…Actually, it was a good thing, because this was the guy who'd created the Restorer AA Gunship after all. It was often bemoaned as overpowered for its price tag (less than the other factions) and abilities, particularly the durability which had most of the UEF and Cybran commanders enraged. You can probably see where this was going in terms of a pissing contest in the form of the Longsword and the… Harpoon Heavy Gunships. The Vulthuum was a matter of necessity for the role, not dissatisfaction with an existing design. Hannah had been the one to suggest that name for the Wailer Mk 2 Prototype after hearing of the Longsword project. Though thoroughly unimpressed, the design team involved in the project had still taken it into account because it was just lame enough to be funny.

Meanwhile the Cybran prodigy's dear husband, renowned for being one of the best-performing Aeon commanders but also one of the most eccentric by far, was also doing something less than smart-looking. In fact, he was almost as eccentric as Dostya had been before she fully finished stabilizing her mind from partial frontal lobe reconstruction. Said long-term project, which hadn't affected Dostya's piloting talents in the least, had been made necessary by the fact that the port on her forehead had originally been drilled there by her owner for _**survivable skull-fucking of his self-maintaining sex doll**_ … Fran shook his head, dispelling the mental image of his wife being abused in such a fashion before he did something regrettable against the young UEF commanders currently working with them.

"Fran!" He cringed, but kept going, paying careful attention to what he was choreographing despite his wife usually using his last name only when severely annoyed "How the hell did water ballet with Shredders and Shards ever seem like a good idea to you?"

"It's good PR!" He protested while recording his work. Eccentric hobbies were a vital part of an ACU pilot's arsenal to keep them from going _completely_ nuts after anywhere from the tenth megadeath to the first gigadeath on their record. It was too bad the woman who was the reason he kept living didn't understand that, probably too concerned about her title as one of the current century's elite pilots and associated reputation. Then again, she didn't have nearly the amount of blood on her hands that he had.

* * *

He thought back to the early days of their relationship, the first time he'd woken up next to a sleeping, naked and vulnerable Cybran, glowing lines tracing over her cheeks, and got the tar beaten out of him for panicking. His mind had registered her being a Cybran before he could quite get over the nightmares that came with the three gigadeaths he'd directly inflicted on the Cybran Nation in his three centuries of service (obscenely low in kills per year for an Aeon pilot of his calibre). The primitive pinned strangulation he tried was thankfully relatively less dangerous, or she'd have (she really should have) probably broken up with him after having her soul re-anchored in a repaired body. Fortunately, thanks to maternal health genetic modifications, modern human females tended to be somewhat larger and heavier than males. Of course, the way he'd been positioned a woman who wasn't too much smaller than the males of the era really should have been able to wrench his hands off her throat even in the pre-Quantum Age. But, given he had used internal Psi boosting… he was very thankful that it hadn't gone too far.

He'd been (given the roiling in his gut, he supposed it was almost literally) scared shitless when he'd finally snapped fully awake and registered who was under him, her eyes rolled up and hands limp. He'd been exceedingly thankful when she sat up and stuck her tongue out at him, instead of what she could have done, namely break his wrists as she wrenched his arms away… or jammed her thumbs into his eyes, or any number of exceedingly painful crippling moves. Come to think of it, she could probably have bucked her hips up and rammed his head into the wall repeatedly… However, it didn't mean she didn't go full-out domestic violence on his very deserving ass after dragging him to the sparring arenas.

She commented that "I shouldn't be too surprised you'd think to defend yourself from a Cybran taking you by surprise given your track record, especially as you'd be thought to be vulnerable given your moral reservations compared to most Aeon pilots… hell, most pilots in general. But I'm surprised you actually attacked, because you've always been very defensive in battle…" just before he stuck his foot in his mouth during breakfast saying they should break up because he was a danger to people around him. Therefore, he had a feeling the domestic violence—AHEM, sparring session—was to educate him on his painfully misplaced concerns. Then he got slapped again the next morning for being a dumbass when she woke up and discovered he'd stayed awake all night out of paranoia.

Still, their relationship proceeded, despite occasional bouts of cultural misunderstanding even beyond PTSD problems, such as when she broke three of his fingers (he used Psionic healing to remedy this) for surprising her by resting his hand on her butt at a party. Cybran women were on average _extremely_ touchy about non-consensual displays of sexual attention of any type, thanks to the large and loud minority of them who were liberated sex slaves.

Despite problems such as Hannah laughing at (and then, after realizing he was serious, lecturing him thoroughly) his claim of her keeping him alive, Fran was very thankful she stuck with him. Otherwise, he would probably have ended his bloodbath of a career by his own hand, in whatever place he could find surrounded by enough Psi Disruptors that his soul would be annihilated beyond all hope of plaguing the universe again, right after the Seraphim War ended. Such was the psychological effect of many gigadeaths on a sociopath who tried too hard to hang onto some modicum of a moral compass. Rhiza, in company with Dostya (who Hannah had been trailing after) had hunted her old friend down as he moped at a bar after reaching his fifteenth gigadeath.

After well over (there was always some uncertainty because scans through evacuation vehicle hulls were less than reliable as the people inside were vaporized) 5 gigadeaths against the UEF and 3 against the Cybrans, Rhiza noticed he'd been cracking. The rather sudden end of the Infinite War had worn him down further in spirit, and the previous mission had been one of the few times he had to put down rogue Aeon elements. He'd topped off his first gigadeath against the people of the Illuminate on the same mission where he finally hit 10 directly inflicted gigadeaths in total. This, and his overall score (including assists calculated as a fraction of a kill) of 23 gigadeaths was very little compared to other pilots with comparably long careers, such as Rhiza, but he'd still buckled under the strain.

 _AHEM, TO EVADE EMO-NESS, I REALLY SHOULD STOP THINKING ABOUT HOW MUCH SHE MEANS TO ME AND HOW SHE PULLED—read: dragged, one word at a time, complete with Dostya and Rhiza's blessing to improve inter-factional relations. Thank goodness too, because if Rhiza had taken it onto herself to pull my head out of my ass she'd probably do so by pulling my head out through my mouth first to demonstrate why I should never have my head up my ass. Hannah was a lot less painful…—ME OUT OF DEPRESSION… So… where were we…?_

Ah well, maybe his new wife wasn't old enough to split off any attention from piloting, eating, spending time with him, and intellectual hobbies (which they overlapped a lot in) like designing things yet. After all, she didn't even have half a direct gigadeath to her name, due to usually being sent on missions that didn't involve encountering many civilians, and the few she did meet often needed to be captured alive. Assists, killed by other pilots while he covered or front-lined for them, counted for anywhere from a quarter to half a kill depending on performance metrics during the operations. Even counting those Hannah fell just short of one gigadeath in score. On the other hand, his official score currently stood at a little over 23 gigadeaths, counting a bit over 11 direct. The precise number was something he didn't want to remember.

His first daughter, back in the day, had schooled him horribly on remembering and almost obsessing over a number that only hurt him… but then that first family of his died during a UEF incursion. His second wife had schooled him in being preoccupied too much with the past in general. Contrary to popular belief among the UEF and Cybrans, ACU pilots were not in fact as well-loved by the Aeon populace as in the other factions. It was disturbing to even speak to people who would kill many millions as easily as breathing, hence why Fran had been astounded when his second wife had made advances toward him. On the other hand it may have been a matter of spending a hundred years focused on his job after his first set of grandchildren died with the rest of his first family, instead of actually looking around and noticing life passing him by. Then there was another UEF incursion, and that was when he began to think that Massani, the same man who exterminated Fran's first attempt to settle down and start a family, was after him specifically.

Fortunately for factional tensions, Zaeed Massani was known to have retired after the Seraphim War ended, howling in laughter at any mention of Fran's third and newest marriage, to a Cybran this time. Of course, Massani's repeatedly and publicly labelling Fran a pedophile thanks to the age difference really was irritating… though admittedly given Fran's lookup (read: asking General Hall) of Massani's personal history he could understand why the man hated him so. Massani had been orphaned and lost three out of five siblings during an Aeon incursion, in a battle where Fran had been the vanguard. Fran had been exploited in that assault by the other Aeon commanders to cover for them (and himself) as he engaged five UEF pilots at the same time. He'd held them all off long enough for the other Aeon pilots to finish massacring the civilians before he withdrew his forces in disgust, as soon as he was permitted by High Command, and merely defended himself and built up, while letting the other three morons on his side fight the UEF for a while. However, neither man had any desire to be arrested for murdering the other on sight, so Fran had noted down in his record that he never wanted to visit the UEF colony where Massani lived with his family.

Actually, Massani might have been laughing himself halfway to death as he retired because when General Hall stepped down and began his campaign for the presidency of the UEF, he'd been the next in line to be appointed to the position. He'd filed his retirement and gotten it approved just barely in time to dodge the electronic and physical avalanche of paperwork involved. That actually was an issue for Fran, because if Rhiza decided to retire as Avatar of War within the next fifty or so years he would more than likely have to deal with an equal avalanche of homework.

* * *

 **A/N:** There is much to be said about Fran's typical attitude toward "cleansing" operations given the kill scores. His Cybran wife had only been in wartime service from 3840 to 3848 and had almost one gigadeath score, while he had served actively as an Aeon pilot for a bit over 300 years and only has 23 gigadeaths score. You can do the math here given the Cybrans are the "fight for freedom" faction while the Aeon are "purge the unbelievers"… Can you say "Mr. Nice Guy" (by Aeon ACU pilot standards)? Rhiza's total score (direct plus assist) is over 100 gigadeaths by the way. She and Fran were enlisted for the same amount of time, and she's actually considered reasonably moderate by Aeon pilot standards. The more zealous and aggressive on each faction tend to have shorter careers with much higher kills per day, usually at least five megadeaths or so personally inflicted per day during any of the numerous Incursions.

There was no war crimes prosecution post-Seraphim War, simply because they'd have to get rid of the entire military hierarchy in every human faction if they even thought to try, and none of the human factions would have tolerated that.

* * *

Back on topic… For the record, the Shredder was the Shard variant with only surface-to-surface armament. It was not part of the standard baseline Aeon roster, but did have some popularity thanks to Fran's fame and general reputation… and occasional bouts of off-the-wall tomfoolery like this…

Hannah sighed, smiling and shaking her head in amusement as she let her husband be. Maybe it was time to choose a Support Commander from the list that had thus far made themselves available. Hmm, this Sanders girl looked promising… liberated in 3843 from a UEF settlement, joined up during the Black Sun Campaign timeframe… ah, yes, that operation had been one of Hannah's many Liberation-type missions, before the Black Sun fiasco. She was genetically engineered to be a tiny, slender blonde, so there wouldn't be any breast envy hang-ups there between them with their similar size (to scale, of course, as Sanders was a measly 165 centimeters, almost 30 shorter than Hannah's more robust build)… Well, maybe Kahlee Sanders would get a test drive as Hannah's Support Commander. Although… she'd probably be less than friendly toward the UEF males. That might be a problem…

Then again, given even Dostya had managed to work with the UEF more or less—though being friendlier with Avatar of War Rhiza than the not nearly so bloodstained General Hall said something rude—Sanders should be fine. At the very least she should be saner than many of the inhabitants of this planet if what Steven was talking about, about Kakashi's team, was true. "Hey, Steven, when'd you get time to stalk them?"

* * *

 **A/N:** Oh hey there Zaeed!

If Dostya had any more reason whatsoever to loathe the UEF I doubt even as a Cybran and therefore mostly rational she would have been able to keep from going on a total rampage despite the fact that the UEF ACU pilots took care of most (the rest were killed by the Order, Seraphim or Cybrans, with General Hall pointedly looking the other way in the latter cases) of their problem citizens personally. I re-evaluated the horror potential of a hole in the head there while writing this chapter.

Who thinks Rhiza and Dostya should pretend (a little too realistically) to hook up just to troll the people going nuts over Fran and Hannah's marriage? The majority of Cybrans are at least mildly bisexual, with Dostya being rather an exception, not due to physiological sexual alignment, but due to psychological bias.

* * *

Speaking of non-standard designs, we should be obligated when recording history to describe some of the ones that are still considered useful in year 3849 to you readers. Due to feedback about talking over the tour of the standard roster with Hinata being unpopular, we have chosen to present the units in another format, with one section divider per unit or structure.

…

…

…

…Uh, those plans are cancelled, based on reader feedback. Apparently someone high up in the command hierarchy thinks—AHEM, ORDERS—that we shouldn't "bore" you. Now, where were we?

* * *

 **A/N:** Please be advised that not only Japanophile fringe colonies exist in either deep space or clusters untouched by the Infinite War (because they need not be touched) and Seraphim War (they weren't in the way of the Seraphim). So don't be too surprised if Battlestar Galactica shows up eventually within this continuity featuring Greek history fetishists.

Don't be too surprised if the Cybran Nation becomes the litmus test for First Contact scenarios as a pretty good predictor of short to mid-term Coalition relations with the other side. Expect stuff like, once we get to BSG (BEFORE Second Cylon War), human-form Cylons to have the opinion "What the frak do you mean you aren't Cylons like us? You even look less human than we do!" Once the Centurions are switched back from the mass production models to the original sentient types (the originals all downloaded to flesh bodies… and were unwilling to leave for sensory reasons), well, meeting the Geth will be a lot of fun after. And of course if the Cyrannus Colonials ever visit Earth they wouldn't even see the habitations on their sensors due to Coalition stealth systems being standard… and all the non-stealthed cities having been levelled by the Seraphim. The problem then would be how to not have the Colonials stupid themselves to death.

I always put up the pilot chapter for the future Stargate crossover while agonizing over the assorted non-standard-roster units, before finally deciding to put their documentation elsewhere for my own reference.

Maybe the Stargate folks can have their own version of BSG in their universe, with more canonical BSG characters' personalities. The two universes' versions of Helena Cain would likely try to rip each other's faces off, one for _continuing_ to frak a Cylon, and the other for seeing in person the obsessed pirate that a certain ancient TV show told her she could potentially have been born as.

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